Forensic STR profiling using Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ MinION sequencer

Forensic STR profiling using massively parallel sequencing (MPS) has gained much attention as an alternative for the traditional capillary electrophoresis (CE) methods. Oxford Nanopore Technologies recently developed the MinION, a pocket-sized nanopore sequencer with promising features that could be useful in the field of forensic genetics. We applied this technology for forensic sequencing in a pilot study. Using standard STR primers, originally designed for multiplex PCR and CE, we developed a library preparation method suited for nanopore sequencing. Several analysis approaches were evaluated to explore the usefulness of the generated data: we developed and applied both a sequence-based and an amplicon length-based analysis on data originating from a 14-loci multiplex PCR on a single contributor DNA sample. Despite the high sequencing error rate, the analyses yielded partial forensic profiles with some useful evidential value.