Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Assays for Disaster Victim Identification (DVI)

Disaster victim identification (DVI) is crucial in the aftermath of mass casualty events, necessitating rapid and precise identification methods. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have gained significant prominence in forensic genetics due to their abundance, stability, and ease of analysis. SNPs are highly valuable genetic markers for DVI, particularly because they are insensitive to DNA degradation and possess high annotation potential, making their underlying biological information invaluable for human identification in molecular forensics. Unlike traditional methods, SNP typing offers a more powerful set of genetic markers, enabling complex analysis and profiling techniques suitable for various genotyping scenarios, from specialized forensic markers to expanded tiling arrays. The small differences in DNA due to polymorphisms, approximately 1 in 1,000 nucleotides, provide sufficient information to uniquely identify a person. SNP assays are particularly effective for analyzing severely damaged DNA samples, a common characteristic of disaster remains, as demonstrated in real-world applications such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2015 Germanwings Flight 9525 crash, and the Yazidi Genocide in Iraq. These assays offer advantages including cost-effectiveness, multiplexing capabilities, and suitability for robotic automation. They also provide valuable information for ancestry inference and the prediction of externally visible characteristics. The ongoing development of SNP assay technologies and their use in DVI protocols highlight their important role in giving accurate identifications and helping families find closure.