The Meowplex: a New Dna Test Using Tetranucleotide Str Markers for the Domestic Cat

With over 65 million cats in the United States today (Pet Food Institute, Washington, D.C.), a large percentage of U.S. households have a cat and thus an abundance of cat hair. With the appropriate DNA tools, cat hairs could be used by a forensic laboratory to provide a link between the perpetrator of a crime and a crime scene. An assailant may unknowingly carry clinging cat hairs from a victim’s cat away from the scene of a crime, or hair from the perpetrator’s cat may be left at the scene (1). Either scenario may provide a crucial link and help solve an important case. In the most famous case to date, DNA analysis of hair from a cat named Snowball was used to link a murder suspect to a crime scene—a result that led to a criminal conviction (2).