Assessing DNA recovery from highly degraded skeletal remains by using silica-based extraction methods

Duplex Alu Screening for Degraded DNA of Skeletal Human Remains

The human-specific Alu elements, belonging to the class of Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs), have been shown to be a powerful tool for population genetic studies. An earlier study in this department showed that it was possible to analyze Alu presence/absence in 3000-year-old skeletal human remains from the Bronze Age Lichtenstein cave in Lower Saxony, Germany. We developed duplex Alu screeni...

Authenticating DNA Extracted From Ancient Skeletal Remains

The survival of DNA, the most informative biological molecule, for periods of at least several thousand years in bone was demonstrated more than four years ago. However, difficulties with authenticating ancient DNA have made diagenetic studies problematic. It is therefore essential that these problems be overcome before the question of DNA survival can be addressed. Here we describe our work wi...

Extraction of DNA from Human Remains.

Improvements to analytical methods have made it possible for highly discriminative genotypic information to be gleaned from smaller and smaller amounts of sample material. This fact makes it practical to genotype samples or remains consisting of bone and tooth-samples that likely would not have yielded interpretable genotypic results a short time ago. In parallel, there have been improvements t...

Highly effective DNA extraction method for nuclear short tandem repeat testing of skeletal remains from mass graves.

AIM To quantitatively compare a silica extraction method with a commonly used phenol/chloroform extraction method for DNA analysis of specimens exhumed from mass graves. METHODS DNA was extracted from twenty randomly chosen femur samples, using the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) silica method, based on Qiagen Blood Maxi Kit, and compared with the DNA extracted by the stand...

Extraction and Analysis of Ancient DNA from Human Remains of Masjede Kabood Burial Site