Abstract: There is an increasing interest in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing in the forensic field. SNPs are very useful for defining Y chromosome or mtDNA haplotypes and DNA phenotyping. We focus on comparative advantages of SNP typing over length variations and expected number of loci required to gain probabilities equal to STR loci in use. This review also offers to the reader a state of the art of SNP genotyping technologies with the advantages and disadvantages of the different techniques and platforms for different forensic requirements.

Key words: single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), SNP genotyping, Autosomal SNPs, DNA phenotyping