MitochondrialDNA: Profiling

Abstract

AbstractMitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA) analysis is a routine adjunct to crime scene investigation. Introduced in the early 1990s to aid with the identification of military remains and implemented since then by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, MD in all military conflicts, it was first used in criminal justice proceedings by the FBI in 1996 inTennessee v. Paul William Ware. In that case, a single hair located in the throat of a victim linked Ware to a homicide. mtDNA provides a valuable locus for forensic DNA typing in certain circumstances, especially for skeletal remains, shed hairs or hair fragments, and degraded samples of all types. In general, it is used when short tandem repeat testing is not possible owing to limited or degraded nuclear DNA because mtDNA is naturally abundant and resistant to degradation. mtDNA cannot be a unique identifier, as can nuclear DNA, because of its pattern of maternal inheritance, nor does it have the statistical power of a nuclear DNA match; as such, it is used as supplementary circumstantial evidence in the prosecution of criminal cases. mtDNA analysis has played a large role in the identification of missing persons when applied to skeletal remains, and because it is as conclusive in an exclusion as nuclear DNA analysis, it has been very useful in postconviction evaluation of crime scene hairs previously examined only by microscope.