Date of Award

Spring 5-2012

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Criminal Justice

School

Criminal Justice, Forensic Science, and Security

Committee Chair

Kuppareddi Balamurugan

Committee Chair Department

Criminal Justice

Committee Member 2

Thomas S. Pittman

Committee Member 2 Department

Criminal Justice

Committee Member 3

Dean Bertram

Committee Member 3 Department

Criminal Justice

Abstract

DNA analysis has become essential to the world of forensics in recent years. The success of such analysis requires effective methods for the extraction of DNA Two straight extraction methods: the organic phenolchloroform extraction method and the ReliaPrepTM Blood gDNA Miniprep System (Promega Corporation, Madison WI), and two differential extractions: the differential organic phenol-chloroform extraction method and a Differex extraction method (Promega Corp.), were compared and assessed to determine their effectiveness in extracting DNA from blood and semen in simulated forensic samples. Real-time PCR quantitation was used to quantify the concentration of DNA recovered from each extraction. Once the samples were quantitated, few selected samples were PCR amplified using the ldentifiler human identification kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) and analyzed using the ABI 310 genetic analyzer to assess the quality and purity of the recovered DNA from the samples. For the straight extraction both methods recovered DNA, but the commercial kit recovered more DNA and produced clean profiles with no alleleic drop outs. For the differential extractions, both methods recovered DNA; however, the commercial kits recovered significantly more DNA than its organic counterpart in addition to producing cleaner profiles.

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