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Full STR Profile of a 67-Year-Old Bone Found in a Fresh Water Lake

NCJ Number
233515
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 56 Issue: S1 Dated: January 2011 Pages: S172-S175
Author(s)
Cornelius Courts, Ph.D.; Burkhard Madea, M.D.
Date Published
January 2011
Length
4 pages
Annotation
DNA extraction from and DNA typing of fresh water-exposed aged bone specimens poses a challenging task and is not very well examined. This study presents a new method to extract typable DNA from such problematic bone specimens.
Abstract
The procedure comprises low-heat drilling and cryogrinding, mild lysis conditions, and silica-column-based DNA cleaning. DNA quantity is assessed by quantitative PCR prior to short tandem repeat (STR) amplification. The procedure was employed with a 67-year-old tibia bone fragment recovered from a fresh water lake and succeeded to produce a full STR profile using the MPX-SP1 and MPX-SP2 mini-STR kits and a partial profile with 12 successfully amplified STRs using the Identifiler STR kit. The new method for the extraction of DNA from aged fresh water-exposed bone specimens presented herein was successfully applied to prepare DNA of sufficient quality and quantity to generate a full STR profile. (Published Abstract)