The Integrity of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Extracted from Whole Teeth Samples Burnt with Different Accelerants Using Two Extraction Protocols for Forensic Sex Determination

Abstract

Sex determination is usually the first step in forensic identification of victim(s) in disasters, jungle justice and arson
scenarios for many medical and legal reasons. The use of DNA in forensic analysis offers a good method in sex
determination and the quality of extracted DNA is very important for downstream PCR. The aim of this study is to
investigate the viability of DNA obtained from burnt teeth for forensic sex-determination. Two DNA extraction
methods consisting of silica based commercial kit and phenol-chloroform organic method, followed by polymerase
chain amplification of amelogenin gene for sex determination were employed. Based on the DNA yield and optical
density values, the kit extraction method performed better than the phenol-chloroform method with 100% and
85.71% success respectively. A Mann-Whitney U test of 260/280 absorbance showed no statistically significant
difference in the median absorbance for aviation fuel (median = 1.34) and gasoline (median =1.32) burnt samples.
Amplification of AMEL genes using the commercial kit and phenol-chloroform method were 52.38% and 22.22%
positive respectively compared to pre-extraction sex determination. This study shows that the use of the silica based
commercial kit technique yielded higher DNA quality and quantity from whole teeth burnt with gasoline and
aviation fuel as accelerants for downstream PCR amplification of AMEL genes compared to organic phenol
chloroform method.