Evaluation of the Ability of Three Commercial DNA Extraction Kits to Remove PCR Inhibitors from Soil

Alexander Badu-Boateng

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9783668783799
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2018 in the subject Medicine - Other, grade: A, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (School of Graduate Studies), language: English, abstract: Crime scene investigation is an important step in the entire criminal investigation process because this is where evidence is gathered. Blood from the perpetrator or victim of a crime can be left at crime scenes or transferred to other materials such as clothing, knives and guns. Most often, this body fluid is contaminated with soil at outdoor crime scenes but this might be the only or the most important evidence in solving a crime. This study aimed at identifying the most appropriate method of extracting quality DNA from soil contaminated blood using three commercial DNA extraction kits (PrepFiler Forensic DNA Extraction kit, Promega DNA IQ Kit, Blood Miniprep kit) that have been claimed by the manufacturers to be effective in extracting quality DNA from soil contaminated samples. Human blood was mixed with soil and stored at room temperature/25? for a 12 week period. The PrepFiler kit and DNA IQ kit were successful at removing possible PCR inhibitors from the soil during DNA extraction with no significant difference (p=0.887). The Blood Miniprep kit performed poor in terms of removing possible PCR inhibitors.