Highlights
- •The ability of four methods for the removal of PCR inhibitors was compared.
- •The PowerClean® kit was very effective for the removal of various inhibitors.
- •The DNA IQ™ System was of similar ability with the PowerClean® DNA kit.
- •The ability of the Chelex®-100 method to remove PCR inhibitors is the worst.
Abstract
Biological samples collected from the crime scenes often contain some compounds that
can inhibit the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The removal of PCR inhibitors from
the extracts prior to the PCR amplification is vital for successful forensic DNA typing.
This paper aimed to evaluate the ability of four different methods (PowerClean® DNA Clean-Up kit, DNA IQ™ System, Phenol–Chloroform extraction and Chelex®-100 methods) to remove eight commonly encountered PCR inhibitors including: melanin,
humic acid, collagen, bile salt, hematin, calcium ions, indigo and urea. Each of these
PCR inhibitors was effectively removed by the PowerClean® DNA Clean-Up kit and DNA IQ™ System as demonstrated by generating more complete short
tandem repeat (STR) profiles from the cleaned up inhibitor samples than from the raw
inhibitor samples. The Phenol–Chloroform extraction and Chelex®-100 methods, however, could only remove some of eight PCR inhibitors. Our results
demonstrated that the PowerClean® DNA Clean-Up kit and DNA IQ™ System were very effective for the removal of known
PCR inhibitors that are routinely found in DNA extracts from forensic samples.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 12, 2014
Accepted:
December 5,
2014
Received in revised form:
December 4,
2014
Received:
October 15,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
