Table 3.

Summary of main applications/advantages and recommendations/limitations of genetic markers used in human forensic analyses.

Genetic Marker	Applications/ Advantages	Limitations/ Recommendations	References
STR	Technical robustness and high variation among individuals; several commercial kits; high level of discrimination, standardized across laboratories	PCR artifacts; highly degraded or low template DNA; certain degree of linkage between some STR markers	[8,80,81,82]
Y-chromosome STR	Gender identification, resolving paternity and family structures	Database sufficiently large and continuously expanded; samples need to be collected randomly; each haplotype submission must include metadata	[83]
X-chromosome STR	Gender identification, resolving paternity and family structures	Evaluation of DNA mixture profiles and linked markers	[81]
Autosomal SNPs	Individual identification; information about physical traits	Highly degraded or low template DNA	[81]
Mitochondrial DNA	High copy number per cell; useful in degraded samples; existence of rich population databases; software tools for phylogenetic checks and data quality control	Inter-laboratory differences about the interpretation of length and point heteroplasmy; not used for individual or breed identification	[60]