2015/01/23

Penn State University January 21, 2015: Penn State research on mitochondrial DNA could bolster forensic investigations

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A new grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) will help scientists from Penn State’s Eberly College of Science delve deep into the world of mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, used to help solve crime in forensic investigations. 

Sometimes, forensic scientists only have mtDNA to work with in their evidence samples, with examples being old bones and hair shafts. However, because this genetic information is passed down from a person’s mother, an individual will have the same mtDNA as his or her mother and siblings, making it hard to distinguish between members of the same family. As a result, it can be challenging in some cases to use mtDNA for identification in forensic investigations.

Penn State scientists will use the $430,000 NIJ grant to explore the rates of low-level mixtures of mtDNA found in most individuals, called heteroplasmic variants. These variants are areas of genetic information in mtDNA that can differ between a mother and child, or between siblings, making this type of DNA analysis much more informative for forensic identifications. In addition, the scientists at Penn State will evaluate how variants are passed between relatives, and between different tissue types in a person’s body. Their initial findings on this topic were published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. more