With the use of capillary electrophoresis (CE), high-resolution electrophoretic separation of short tandem repeat (STR) loci can be achieved in a semiautomated fashion. Laser-induced detection of fluorescently labeled PCR products and multicolor analysis facilitate the rapid generation of multilocus DNA profiles. This study investigated conditions for typing PCR-amplified STR loci by capillary electrophoresis, using the ABI Prism 310 Genetic Analyzer (Applied Biosystems). DNA was extracted from population samples (Caucasian, African American, and Trinidadian) and from case samples. Commercially available DNA from human cell line 9947A (Applied Biosystems) was also used. The quantity of DNA in each extract was estimated using a chemiluminescence-based, slot blot procedure that entails hybridization of a human alphoid probe. The study concludes that CE provides efficient separation, resolution, sensitivity, and precision, and the analytical software provides reliable genotyping of STR loci. Further, the analytical conditions of the study are suitable for typing samples such as reference and evidentiary samples from forensic casework. Tables, figures, references