STR typing of human telogen hairs--a new approach.

A new approach to short tandem repeat (STR) typing of DNA extracted from telogen shed hairs is presented. Newly designed primer pairs with annealing positions close to the repeat units of the STR loci HUMFES, HUMTH01 and HUMTPOX were used for amplification. The typing results were compared to those obtained by the commonly used primer pairs by means of success rates. The primer pairs capable of producing very short amplicons (< 106 bp with HUMFES, < 86 bp with HUMTH01 and < 87 bp with HUMTPOX) described in this study significantly increased the success rates when typing telogen hairs.