Identification of Human Remains from Mass Graves Found in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

A variety of methods have been used in our laboratory in an effort to improve identification methods. The first DNA identification we successfully performed was in 1994 when we were able to identify 5 persons found in the Kupres mass grave (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In that particular case DNA was isolated using phenol/chloroform extraction followed by Centricon 100 purification and concentration and amplified with the AmpliType PM + DQA1 system. Since that first identification different extraction methods have been used in an effort to obtain more efficient amplification. Recently, we introduced the AmpFISTR ProfilerTM PCR System that allows multiplex amplification of nine STR loci (D3S1358, vWA, FGA, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820) and the amelogenin (AMEL) sex-typing locus. After analysis of more than 140 samples we noticed that the AmpFISTRTM Profiler amplification reaction for the DNA isolated from the skeletal remains is significantly more efficient than amplification by the AmpliType PM + DQA1 system. Furthermore, we observed that DNA extracted from teeth gives much better results than DNA extracted from long bones. However, in a few cases where genomic DNA was extremely degraded we formed a collaboration with other laboratories and analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was performed.