Paternity or parentage identification is based on the ability to establish the genetic relationship between the parent(s)biological offspring. From the beginning of the twentieth century, several methods have been developed and utilized for this purpose. The utilization of these techniques has followed the developing knowledge about the characteristics of the human genotype as well as having, in the last two decades, incorporated the development of new techniques such as molecular biology. With the knowledge that each human is genetically unique as result of genetic polymorphism, blood group antigen typing and other immunological techniques including the human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, became widely used for paternity testing and forensic science application until the end of the 1970s.

In the mid-1980s, these techniques were replaced by direct analysis of the DNA polymorphisms. The first of such techniques, developed by Alec...