Mitochondrial DNA in human hair shafts--existence of intra-individual differences?

Abstract

The sequences of the hypervariable region 1 (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA control region from multiple hair shafts from 10 unrelated individuals were compared to determine the frequency of differences in hairs from one individual. The extraction method described herein showed an average success rate of 67% for all 150 hair shafts tested in HV1. The mtDNA sequences from the hair shafts matched the sequences from the corresponding blood and saliva samples taken from the same donor and no evidence of heteroplasmy was found. The results emphasize the reliability of DNA extraction and mtDNA typing from human hair shafts for forensic purposes.