title: Identification of the skeletal remains of a murder victim by DNA analysis.
abstract: There is considerable anthropological and forensic interest in the possibility of DNA typing skeletal remains. Trace amounts of DNA can be recovered even from 5,500-year-old bones and multicopy human mitochondrial DNA sequences can frequently be amplified from such DNA using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). But given the sensitivity of PCR, it is very difficult to exclude contaminating material. We now report the successful identification of the 8-year-old skeletal remains of a murder victim, by comparative typing of nuclear microsatellite markers in the remains and in the presumptive parents of the victim. This analysis establishes the authenticity of the bone DNA and the feasibility of bone DNA typing in forensic investigations.
authors.affiliation: MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hagelberg
authors.forename: I C
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Gray
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Jeffreys
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001483:Base Sequence; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry*; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D005838:Genotype; D006708:Homicide; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009035:Mothers; D009691:Nucleic Acid Denaturation; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014852:Wales
chemical_list: D004247:DNA