DNA Profiling

Forensic scientists use DNA profiling as a tool to help them in the identification of key suspects in a given case. Several approaches could be used when collecting and preparing the DNA samples that are to be used in a given study. The swabs scrape off cheek cells always contain the DNA samples (Dwyer, 2018). In forensic science, a huge variety of tissues in the body are sample sources of DNA. Samples must contain cells as they come from the human body.  As such, the steps involved in the determination of the DNA sequence of is as follows,

  1. The DNA is extracted from cells.
  2. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is subsequently performed upon the DNA samples – this is the process where millions of the copies of a given DNA sample is mad.
  • The molecular “xeroxing” process is thus completed by precise heating as well as cooling the DNA samples in a cycling pattern.
  1. The next step is the Capillary Electrophoresis (CE). After the completion of the PCR reaction, the result is the vast mixture of amplified DNA molecules that need to be separated to distinguish the particles from each other. It is accomplished through this process of capillary electrophoresis (Primorac &Schanfield, 2014).

One of the DNA sequencing methods is the Sanger’s dideoxy chain termination. The following are the steps involved;

  1. The DNA sample is added to the four tubes each with the set of ddNTP (A, T, C or G) and the T7DNA polymerase.
  2. Each of the reaction tubes is then run through the gel
  • The gel is then read from the bottom end right towards the top. The sequence that has been generated will be complementary to the DNA.

DNA profiling could be used by forensic scientists when they want to identify a criminal – this has helped authorities in getting to know the identities of criminals in cases that were pretty hard to solve. The DNA testing is essential to this application as it gives direction on who has been involved say in a crime (Dwyer, 2018).One of the questions, which has been addressed in this application includes; is this the best approach to achieve an expert analysis into the DNA sample?

Alternatives to DNA testing could be the analysis of some of the body cells and doing a cross-matching analysis to answer various questions that forensic scientists are doubting.

 

References

Dwyer, R. A. (2018). Comparing DNA Sequences. Genomic Perl4(23), 30-43. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139164764.004.

Primorac, D., & Schanfield, M. (2014). Forensic DNA Applications: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

 
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