Tahirah Gibson March 1, 2010 Period 3 Forensics

DNA Lab
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a persons body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladders rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder. Forensic scientists can use DNA in blood, semen, skin, saliva or hair found at a crime scene to identify a matching DNA of an individual. In criminal investigations, the DNA fingerprint of a suspect's blood or other body material is compared to that of the evidence from the crime scene to see how closely they match. A common procedure for DNA fingerprinting is restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). In this method, DNA is extracted from a sample and cut into segments using special restriction enzymes. RFLP focuses on segments that contain sequences of repeated DNA bases, which vary

widely from person to person. The segments are separated using a laboratory technique called electrophoresis, which sorts the fragments by length. The segments are radioactively tagged to produce a visual pattern known as an autoradiograph, or "DNA fingerprint," on X-ray film. The purpose of the agarose gel might be to look at the DNA, to quantify it or to isolate a particular band. The most common dye used to make DNA or RNA bands visible for agarose gel electrophoresis is ethidium bromide. In the case of the Crowned-Jewels there were two suspects and a crime scene DNA being tested. During our procedure we first started off when the DNA from crime-scene evidence or from a reference sample is cut with something called a restriction enzyme. The DNA is then put into the centrifuge to make sure all is mixed together for the enzymes to work then put into an incubator to warm it to jumpstart the restriction enzymes. The cut DNA pieces are now sorted according to size by a device called a gel. The sample is then electrophoretically separated. The DNA at this point is invisible in the gel unless the DNA is stained with a dye. While the gel is being cooled a comb is put into the gel to form the wells where the DNA is put into. The DNA is placed at one end of a slab of gelatin, into the wells, and it is drawn through the gel by an electric current. The gel acts like a sieve allowing small DNA fragments to move more rapidly than larger ones. After the gel has separated the DNA pieces according to size, a blot or replica of the gel is made to trap the DNA in the positions that they end up in, with small DNA fragments near one end of the blot and large ones near the other end. The black light is then shown for the gel to see which ones went farther and also which DNAs match up to each other.

In my results I was unable to establish who done the crime do to neither of the suspects matching up with crime scene DNA. Inconclusive possibilities were due to possible improper mixing or too much or too little of one liquid in a mixture.