Recovery of DNA and fingerprints from touched documents

Sewell, Jonathan; Quinones, Ignacio; Ames, Carole; Multaney, Bryan; Curtis, Stuart; Seeboruth, Haj; Moore, Stephen; Daniel, Barbara

doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2008.03.006

« Previous Next »Forensic Science International: Genetics
Volume 2, Issue 4 , Pages 281-285, September 2008

Recovery of DNA and fingerprints from touched documents

Jonathan Sewell
- Department of Forensic Science and Drug Monitoring, King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London, SE1 9NH, UK
Ignacio Quinones
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 207 230 3650.
Carole Ames
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
Bryan Multaney
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
Stuart Curtis
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
Haj Seeboruth
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
Stephen Moore
- Directorate of Forensic Services, Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard, 10 Broadway, London, SW1H 0BG, UK
Barbara Daniel
- Department of Forensic Science and Drug Monitoring, King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London, SE1 9NH, UK

Received 17 July 2007; received in revised form 17 March 2008; accepted 27 March 2008. published online 20 May 2008.

Abstract

This study investigated the various factors affecting DNA profiling from DNA recovered from fingerprints deposited on paper before and after fingerprint enhancement treatments. The DNeasy^® plant mini kit (QIAGEN^®) was found to improve DNA recovery from paper by over 150% compared with the QIAamp^® mini kit. A significant decrease in the amount of DNA recovered was observed following treatment with DFO and/or Ninhydrin. This decrease in yield did not have a comparably significant effect on the quality of the SGM Plus™ profiles. Furthermore, this study found that whilst certain paper types, such as newspaper, magazine and filter paper allowed for the good recovery of DNA, common office paper and white card, strongly interfered with the recovery of DNA resulting in poor quality profiles.

Keywords: Forensic, Fingerprints, DNA profiling, Paper, DFO, Ninhydrin