title: Introducing human population biology through an easy laboratory exercise on mitochondrial DNA.
abstract: This article describes an easy and cheap laboratory exercise for students to discover their own mitochondrial haplogroup. Students use buccal swabs to obtain mucosa cells as noninvasive tissue samples, extract DNA, and with a simple polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis they can obtain DNA fragments of different sizes that can be visualized in agarose gels. The analysis of these fragments can reveal the mitochondrial haplogroup of each student. The results of the exercise can be used to provide additional insights into the genetic variation of human populations.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biología de Organismos y Sistemas, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.
authors.forename: Antonio F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Pardiñas
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dopico
authors.forename: Agustín
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roca
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Garcia-Vazquez
authors.forename: Belen
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lopez