Peripheral blood samples were collected from 60 Japanese individuals to examine dinucleotide repeat polymorphism at the apolipoprotein AII locus. The informativeness in Japanese was as high as in Caucasians (PIC value and heterozygosity of 0.67 and 0.72, respectively), but their allele frequencies were different, to a statistically significant degree. These findings demonstrate the advantages of using dinucleotide repeat polymorphisms in forensic science because a phenotype can be determined not only from a single hair root but from a short hair shaft. 2 tables, 2 figures, and 19 notes