Final Report on NIJ

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally-funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Introduction Forensic DNA testing is seriously hampered by a growing backlog of DNA samples. There are more than a half million unsolved criminal cases awaiting DNA testing. Part of the solution is the development of new analytical methods to reduce the backlog. High accuracy of the results of DNA testing is of critical importance. Analysis time and expense are also significantly important considerations. New methods under development for reducing the backlog are based on applications of denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC). Purpose of the report The overall goal of the work was to contribute to forensic DNA research and development by generating results and findings that are useful to crime laboratories. The scope of the work was to assess the potential for dHPLC for development into a useful analytical method for forensic DNA testing. The project evaluated whether dHPLC has the potential of being developed into a useful analytical method for DNA testing. Exploratory studies were performed on the extension of dHPLC techniques to the detection and characterization of modified DNA. Forensic applications of Denaturing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (dHPLC) dHPLC is a recently developed specialized version of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Whereas HPLC is a standard piece of equipment used in many crime labs for trace and drug analysis, dHPLC is currently available in only a few labs. The advantage of dHPLC over HPLC is applications in DNA testing. Current dHPLC methods can detect DNA Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in less than ten minutes following PCR amplification. The methodology for obtaining sample DNA is standard. The researchers collected hair samples from fifty volunteers. By sampling the root, they were able to acquire DNA. Experiments were conducted using dHPLC to detect SNPs from mitochondria1 DNA. Although further work is needed to develop a standardized method for forensic DNA analysis, the researchers concluded that dHPLC is a promising way to analyze DNA with potentially significant advantages over commonly used methods. Current DNA analytical methods are most effective for detecting and identifying unmodified DNA. New methods for detecting modified DNA would be useful to crime labs, because detection of specifically-modified DNA could assist in the identification of individuals …