Chapter 17 - Applications of DNA Typing

Abstract

DNA data plays an important role in other applications such as parentage and kinship testing where DNA results from potential relatives are being compared. Different questions are usually being asked in parentage testing than in criminal casework where a direct match is being considered between evidence and suspect. Several applications exist that involve DNA evidence from related individuals. Traditional parentage testing that usually involves addressing questions of paternity, missing persons, and mass disaster investigations that involve reverse parentage analysis. Immigration cases also involve kinship testing to determine if an individual could have a proposed relationship to reference samples. Statistical test performed in paternity testing is the paternity index and exclusion probability. A combination of samples from more than one close relative can help provide greater confidence in this kinship analysis. Since parentage and kinship testing involve measuring genetic relationships across generations, mutations that may occur must be taken into account in these investigations. Mass disasters, whether natural or man-made, can involve loss of life for many victims of the tragedy. Efforts to identify these victims are referred to as disaster victim identification (DVI). DVI always involves comparison of post-mortem and ante-mortem data. DVI is much more complicated than parentage testing because so many more comparisons are being made depending on the number of victims involved. DNA databases can play an important role in helping identify missing individuals over time. The chapter also discusses other uses for STRs and DNA typing methods such as characterizing cell lines, detecting genetic chimeras, monitoring transplants, detecting cancer tumors. Genetic genealogy and ancestry tests attempt to gain a better understanding of one's heritage.