Full STR profile of a 67-year-old bone found in a fresh water lake.

Authors :: Courts C
Madea B
Source :: Journal of forensic sciences [J Forensic Sci] 2011 Jan; Vol. 56 Suppl 1, pp. S172-5. Date of Electronic Publication: 2010 Oct 19.
Publication Year :: 2011
Abstract: 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. 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.<br /> (© 2010 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.)