Gender identification of highly degraded DNA extracted from human compact bone samples

ABSTRACT

The present work revealed a sensitive and reliable method for sex typing of degraded DNA extracted from bones subjected to different environmental conditions, based on amplification of the single- copy X- Y homologous amelogenin gene using nested PCR technology. The success of retrieval of amplifiable amelogenin was related to the storage conditions, bones exposed to open air were found to provide sufficiently preserved DNA, followed by sand buried bones then sea water submerged samples. The success rate of the amelogenin amplification was 88.9%, 66.7% and 46.7%, respectively. Moreover, the method of DNA extraction with high salt, followed by phenol- chloroform gave the best results. This test enabled gender identification from as low as 3 ng DNA, suggesting that even a small fragment of a bone was sufficient to carry out the procedure of isolation of DNA for sex typing