Eleven X-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) from two multiplex PCR approaches (DXS6807, DXS8378, DXS7132, DXS6800, DXS9898, DXS7424, DXS101, DXS7133, HPRTB, DXS8377, and DXS7423), located in four different X-chromosomal linkage groups, were typed in a population sample from Ghana, Africa. After genotyping unrelated men (129) and women (114) from the Ashanti population, forensic efficiency parameters such as polymorphism information content and mean exclusion chance were calculated. A deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium could not be found. The investigation of 11 father-daughter and seven mother-son meioses revealed no mutations in any STR analyzed. Our data were compared with European, African-American, and Asian populations from the literature.

Eleven X-chromosomal STRs from two multiplex PCR approaches (DXS6807, DXS8378, DXS7132, DXS6800, DXS9898, DXS7424, DXS101, DXS7133, HPRTB, DXS8377, and DXS7423), located in four different X-chromosomal linkage groups, were typed in two population samples from Africa, Morocco, and Madagascar. Forensic efficiency parameters such as polymorphism information content and mean exclusion chance were calculated. A deviation from the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium could not be found. The investigation of four father–daughter and five mother–son meioses (from Morocco) revealed no mutations in any STR analyzed. Our data were compared with European, African-American, and Asian populations from the literature.

Paternity and maternity investigations in immigration procedures are frequently done in Germany. Since mostly only one parent and one or more children are investigated, the occurrence of possible mutational events has to be interpreted with great care and the analysis of as many STRs as possible is recommended. The new Powerplex® ESX17 and Powerplex® ESI17 kits from Promega comprising both eleven established STRs and additionally the loci D1S1656, D2S441, D10S1248, D12S391, and D22S1045 (in different order) are potential tools in such paternity or maternity analyses, but only few allele frequency data for the five new loci exist. Here, we provide allele frequencies for the five additional STRs from three different populations from Africa. In addition, we present two maternity cases and one paternity case in which a clear inclusion or exclusion of the alleged parent could only be achieved by the additional application of the new Powerplex® ESX17 kit.