Evaluation of Various Methods of DNA Analysis for Hair Samples

Abstract

Three Kinds of DNA analyses; AmpliType® PM typing, TH01 typing and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis were evaluated to establish the corroborative method for forensic hair comparison. Five scalp telogen hairs were collected from 12 Japanese males ranging in age from 26 to 33 years. DNA was extracted from five hair shafts of 5cm in length and from five hair roots of 3mm in length taken from each subject. The PM typing was performed using the AmpliType® PM PCR Amplification and Typing Kit. The TH01 typing was carried out using Quick-TypeTM HUMTH01 and was detected by silver staining. For the mtDNA analysis, the sequencings of the two hypervariable regions (HV1 and HV2) of control region were performed by using the ABI PRISMTM Dye Terminator Cycle Sequencing Ready Reaction Kit with AmpliTaq® DNA polymerase FS and ABI PRISMTM model 377 DNA sequencer.   In the telogen hair, the hair root was a suitable sample for both PM and TH01 typing compared to the hair shaft samples (about 50% of the subjects could be detected from the hair root samples). The PM typing and TH01 typing showed almost equal detectability. In the mtDNA analysis, the PCR amplifications of HV1 and HV2 were successfully performed in all twelve subjects by employing new primer, and the sequences of the PCR products from two subjects were determined. This result suggests that the mtDNA analysis can be applied for hair comparison in cases where the genomic DNA typing is not available. However, further study for the reliability and reproducibility of the mtDNA analysis should be performed.