Laser mass spectrometry for DNA fingerprinting for forensic applications

C. H. Winston Chen; Kai Tang; N. I. Taranenko; S. L. Allman; L. Y. Ch'ang

doi:10.1117/12.191883

25 October 1994 Laser mass spectrometry for DNA fingerprinting for forensic applications

C. H. Winston Chen, Kai Tang, N. I. Taranenko, S. L. Allman, L. Y. Ch'ang

Proceedings Volume 2277, Automatic Systems for the Identification and Inspection of Humans; (1994) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.191883
Event: SPIE's 1994 International Symposium on Optics, Imaging, and Instrumentation, 1994, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

The application of DNA fingerprinting has become very broad in forensic analysis, patient identification, diagnostic medicine, and wildlife poaching, since every individual's DNA structure is identical within all tissues oftheir body. DNA fingerprinting was initiated by the use of restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP). In 1987, Nakamura et aL2 found that a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) often occurred in the alleles. The probability of different individuals having the same number of tandem repeats in several different alleles is very low. Thus, the identification of VNTR from genomic DNA became a very reliable method for identification of individuals. Take the Huntington gene as an example, there are CAG trinucleotide repeats. For normal people, the number of CAG repeats is usually between 10 and 40. Since people have chromosomes in pairs, the possibility oftwo individuals having the same VNTR in the Huntington gene is less than one percent, ifwe assume equal distribution for various repeats. When several allels containing VNTR are analyzed for the number of repeats, the possibility of two individuals being exactly identical becomes very unlikely. Thus, DNA fingerprinting is a reliable tool for forensic analysis. In DNA fingerprinting, knowledge of the sequence of tandem repeats and restriction endornuclease sites can provide the basis for identification.

Citation Download Citation

C. H. Winston Chen, Kai Tang, N. I. Taranenko, S. L. Allman, and L. Y. Ch'ang "Laser mass spectrometry for DNA fingerprinting for forensic applications", Proc. SPIE 2277, Automatic Systems for the Identification and Inspection of Humans, (25 October 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.191883

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