TECHNICAL TIPS

STR Information on the Internet

By Kimberly A. Huston e-mail [email protected]

With the advent of the Internet, many can be reached from a link on the Promega information on registration as well as a useful sites are available at the touch of a Home Page, or directly at the following schedule and speaker update. button. This medium contains a wealth of address: www.promega.com/geneticidentity/. Customized GenePrint™ System Protocols information that may be updated regularly, On the Genetic Identity page are listings of also may be accessed from the Genetic Identity so that accurate, current data may be new products; Meetings, Tradeshows and page. Customized GenePrint™ Protocols are accessed at any point in time. In this article, I Workshops; Customized GenePrint™ System designed for each user’s specific needs, based will highlight some Internet sites that may be Protocols; current and past issues of on their choice of GenePrint™ System and of interest to the DNA typing community. Profiles in DNA; GenePrint™ Product Information; Symposia Proceedings; and detection method. See page 14 of this issue contact information. for further information on the Customized Protocols. These protocols may also be Q: What is on the Promega Internet To view the new product information, accessed via the Technical Resource Center site? simply click on the hypertext link. This link button, found at the top of each screen. will open a page containing product descrip- A: The Promega Internet site is a helpful tion and catalog information. Issues of Profiles in DNA are accessed tool that may be used to access various easily through the link on the Genetic resources that provide valuable information The Meetings, Tradeshows and Identity page or directly from to those involved in DNA typing. The Workshops section provides links to infor- www.promega.com/profiles/. On the address for the Promega Home Page is mation on upcoming events in the DNA typ- Profiles in DNA page, any article from a past www.promega.com (Figure 1). From this ing community. Currently, information on issue may be retrieved. A subscription to page, many different areas of the web site the Second European Symposium on Human the postal mailing of Profiles in DNA may may be accessed. The Genetic Identity page Identification is available. This link contains also be requested at this site. Product descriptions for all of the GenePrint™ DNA typing products are available by selecting GenePrint™ Product Information. To send an e-mail message directly to the Genetic Identity team, select the “Talk to Genetic Identity” link on the Genetic Identity page. The Technical Resource Center of the Promega Internet Site contains a number of valuable links to Promega publications, tech- nical literature and product bibliographies, as well as general technical information. The address for this page is www.promega.com/ techserv/. All of the GenePrint™ Customized Protocols, Profiles in DNA issues and Technical Manuals are accessible from this site as well as from the Genetic Identity site. In addition, a list of interesting Internet sites can be found under the BioLink hypertext in the upper right hand portion of the page. The address for the BioLink page is www.promega.com/biolink/.

Figure 1. The Promega Home Page.

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The BioLink Resources for the Life Q: Are there any web sites that are Q: What are the web addresses of Scientist are comprised of seven areas. These specifically devoted to Short Tandem some other organizations that are are Life Science Databases, Suppliers of Repeats (STRs)? involved with DNA typing? Reagents and Equipment, Molecular Biology Servers, Information Resources, Organism- A: STRBase is a very useful database that A: The Internet addresses for the Specific Information, Societies, Institutions, contains sequence information on com- American Academy of Forensic Sciences and and Government Agencies, and Journals. The monly used STR systems, population data, the American Association of Blood Banking Life Science Databases section contains sev- PCR primers and conditions and a technol- are www.aafs.org and www.aabb.org, eral links including those to the GenBank® ogy review for STR analysis. This site can be respectively. The European DNA Profiling sequence database under the NCBI site, and accessed at ibm4.carb.nist.gov:8800/dna/ Group (EDNAP) has an Internet site at the MEDLINE® database under the Entrez™ home.htm or from Promega’s BioLink page. www.uni-mainz.de/FB/Medizin/Rechtsmedizin/ Site. This site also contains background informa- ednap/ednap.htm. The Federal Bureau of tion on STR loci and a list of references sup- Investigation site can be found at porting each locus. More information on this www.fbi.gov, and the Forensic Science Q: Are there any sites that will tell me site can be found in reference 1. Service Internet site is www.fss.org.uk.The the chromosomal location of short Internet address of the Perkin-Elmer Genetic tandem repeat (STR) regions? Analysis site is www2.perkin-elmer.com/ga/ Q: Are there any journals that have index.htm. A: There are many useful sites for deter- sites on the Internet? mining chromosomal location of STR regions. The first is the Cooperative Human A: Many journals have Internet sites. Q: What other general resource sites Linkage Center (CHLC), located at The American Journal of Human Genetics are available? www.chlc.org and linked from the BioLink site, which can be found at www.faseb.org/ Resources page of the Promega site. This site genetics/ashg/jou-ashg.htm, contains A: Carpenter’s Forensic Science Resources is a useful source for genetic maps of PCR- recent full text issues that are searchable. site, located at www.tncrimlaw.com/foren- formatted microsatellite markers. Genetic BioTechniques is available at sic/, is an interesting source of information maps of each chromosome are listed with www.biotechniques.com. Although this site on forensic science-related issues. Under the positions of these markers. Searching does not contain a current issue to peruse, Forensic DNA Analysis, a basic discussion of for information about specific microsatellite articles may be found using a keyword DNA is listed, along with links to forensic markers using the CHLC Marker Maps search. The Internet site for the Proceedings and general DNA-related sites. prompt is quite easy. Information retrieved of the National Academy of Sciences allows A vast amount of information is available on specific markers includes other names access to full text articles for current on the Internet; this is only a sample listing that have been used for that marker, and the subscribers. The address for that site is of the Internet sites that may be useful to the chromosomal location in recombination www.pnas.org. Abstracts and Tables of DNA typing community. The Internet is fractions and Kosambi centimorgans (cM). Contents are available for Human Molecular readily accessible and is a valuable tool for Genetics and Nucleic Acids Research.Full STRBase, a web site sponsored by staying informed of current developments text articles for these journals are offered the National Institute of Standards and in and related to the field of forensic DNA only to those individuals who have a Technology (NIST), also contains a list typing. current subscription to the journal. The of chromosomal locations for STR loci. address for Human Molecular Genetics is The address for this site is www.oup.co.uk/hmg/, and the address REFERENCE ibm4.carb.nist.gov:8800/dna/home.htm for Nucleic Acids Research is 1. Butler, J.M. and Reeder, D.J. (1997) STRBase: a (see next question). www.oup.co.uk/nar/. Nature Genetics, short tandem repeat DNA database. Profiles in All of the above sites give GenBank® located at www.genetics.nature.com,only DNA 1(2), 8. accession numbers, which allow GenBank® contains abstracts for current articles. GenePrint is a trademark of Promega Corporation. records to be retrieved from the Internet. The address for the GenBank® site is Entrez is a trademark of and MEDLINE is a registered trademark of the National Library of Medicine. GenBank www2.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/genbank. is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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