Amelogenin sex determination by pyrosequencing of short PCR products

We developed an assay, which allows the sex determination of human DNA samples by pyrosequencing of short PCR products. A 48/45-bp stretch including primers of the amelogenin gene with a 3-bp insertion on the Y chromosome was chosen for analysis. In an initial study, we correctly typed 50 male and 50 female DNA samples from unrelated donors. First experiments with forensic samples, which failed in conventional analyses, indicate that this approach might be an advantage when dealing with degraded DNA.