NEW YORK (AFP) - A prominent American columnist who says Donald Trump raped her asked the president on Thursday (Jan 30) to provide a DNA sample so as to determine whether it matches genetic material found on her dress.

Ms E. Jean Carroll, 76, alleges that Mr Trump sexually assaulted her in the changing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in New York in the mid-1990s.

She sued him for defamation in November, claiming that his denials of the alleged attack, in which he said, "she's not my type", had damaged her reputation and career.

As part of those proceedings, her lawyer filed a court notice asking that Mr Trump take a physical examination to compare his DNA with that of an "unidentified male" present on a black dress Ms Carroll says she was wearing on the day she was allegedly raped.

"The dress has been tested. We have the results. My attorney @kaplanrobbie has served notice to @realDonaldTrump's attorney to submit a sample of Trump's DNA," Ms Carroll wrote on Twitter.

She says the alleged sexual assault took place after Mr Trump, then a famous real estate developer, asked her for advice on buying lingerie for an unnamed woman.

The president denied knowing Ms Carroll and accused her of "totally lying" when the claims were put to him in an interview with The Hill, a political news outlet, in June last year.

Ms Carroll, who writes a long-running column in Elle magazine, became at least the 16th woman to have accused Mr Trump of sexual misconduct before he became president.

Mr Trump denies all the allegations.

Ms Summer Zervos, a one-time contestant on Mr Trump's reality television show The Apprentice, has also sued him for defamation after he said she lied in claiming that he groped and forcibly kissed her.