Biomics

The structural organization of the mitochondrial genome of dogs is briefly considered, paying more attention to its variable areas, including the control region and its hypervariable parts HV1 and HV2, as well as a block of tandem decameric repeats and a homopolymer tract of cytosines and thymines. It is noted that the detected polymorphism of mitogenomes forming the clades with haplotypes, with few exceptions, are practically unrelated to dog breeds and their geographical place of residence. In general, the polymorphism of the mitochondrial DNA of dogs does not allow unambiguously identifying a specific individual and in criminalistics, in most cases, it is possible with one or another probability, depending on the variable areas taken into analysis, only to exclude suspected dogs that could lead to their owners from further investigation. Moreover, this requires the creation of population databases of canine mitogenomes, which can be used to calculate the probability of coincidence of haplotypes. Examples of individual cases of investigation of crimes in which polymorphism of DNA of dogs were used, including those that ended with a conviction, are given. Attention is drawn to the need for wider introduction into forensic practice of usage of canine DNA, which can obtained from traces left by dogs mainly in the form of saliva or wool (individual hairs).

dog, canine, Canis familiaris, mtDNA, mitochondrial genome, mitogenome, polymorphism, criminalistics

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