DNA

DNA has been used for years as a new tool for forensic(legal) science. In
violent crimes, blood or small fragments of opther tissue may be left at the scene of
the crime or on the clothes or other possessions of the victim or assailant. If rape is
involved , semen ay be recovered from the victim’s body. If enough tissue or
semen is available, forensic laboratories can perform tests to determine the blood
type or tisue type.
Introduction :
Deoxyribonubleic Acid or simply DNA , is the genetic material found in the
cells of all living organisms. DNA is the fundmental building blocks for life.
Nearly every cell (with a nucleus) in a person's body has the same DNA. Most
DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but DNA can
also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or
mtDNA).

The information in DNA is made up of four bases which combine to form

chains. These bases include two purines (Adenine and Guanine) and two
pyrimidines (Cytosine and Thymine). These are commonly referred to as A, G, C
and T respectively. Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than
99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. It is the order, or sequence, of
these bases which determines genetic characteristics.

DNA enables us to get information of ourselves and others. In this module, you’ll
be informed about the inheritance of the genetic material to the offspring.

Figure A. Shows a DNA model

PRETEST :
WHAT IS DNA ?

A nucleic acid that carries the genetic information in the cell and is capable of self-
replication and synthesis of RNA. DNA consists of two long chains of nucleotides twisted into a
double helix and joined by hydrogen bonds between the complementary bases adenine and
thymine or cytosine and guanine. The sequence of nucleotides determines individual hereditary
characte

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/dna#ixzz1F6vlwZFg

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other
organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the
cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in
the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A),
guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and
more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these
bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to
the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.

DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each
base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and
phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral
called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base
pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical
sidepieces of the ladder.

An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of
DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is
critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present
in the old cell.
DNA is a double helix formed by base pairs attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone.

Forensic
History of DNA
The discovery that DNA was the carrier of genetic information was a process that required many
earlier discoveries. The existence of DNA was discovered in the mid 19th century. However, it
was only in the early 20th century that researchers began suggesting that it might store genetic
information.

Friedrich Miescher (1844-1895) discovered a substance he called "nuclein" in 1869. Somewhat

later, he isolated a pure sample of the material now known as DNA from the sperm of salmon,
and in 1889 his pupil, Richard Altmann, named it "nucleic acid". This substance was found to
exist only in the chromosomes.

In 1929 Phoebus Levene at the Rockefeller Institute identified the components that make up a
DNA Molecule. Those components are: 

A. The four bases

1. Adenine (A)
2. Cytosine (C)
3. Guanine (G)
4. Thymine (T)
B. Sugar
C. Phosphate

He showed that the components of DNA were linked in the order phosphate-sugar-base. He
called each of these units a nucleotide and suggested the DNA molecule consisted of a string of
nucleotide units linked together through the phosphate groups, which are the 'backbone' of the
molecule. However Levene thought the chain was short and that the bases repeated in the same
fixed order. Torbjorn Caspersson and Einar Hammersten showed that DNA was a polymer.

This was only accepted after the structure of DNA was elucidated by James D. Watson and
Francis Crick in their 1953 Nature publication. Watson and Crick proposed the central dogma
of molecular biology in 1957, describing the process whereby proteins are produced from nucleic
DNA. In 1962 Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize for their
determination of the structure of DNA. The Nobel Prize would not have been given to them if it
hadn't been for Rosalind Franklin and her famous photograph, Photo Fifty-One. Franklin,
however, did not get much attention until recently, because before the Nobel Prize was given to
Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, Franklin died of ovarian cancer. The most probable reason Franklin
contracted cancer was her exposure to radiation from X-ray diffraction which is what she had
used to take the photograph, photo Fifty-one.

DNA profiling was developed in 1984 by English geneticist Alec Jeffreys of the University of
Leicester, and was first used to convict Colin Pitchfork in 1988 in the Enderby murders case in
Leicestershire, England. This has helped investigators solve old cases where the perpetrator was
unknown and only a DNA sample was obtained from the scene (particularly in rape cases
between strangers). This method is one of the most reliable techniques for identifying a criminal,
but is not always perfect, for example if no DNA can be retrieved, or if the scene is contaminated
with the DNA of several possible suspects.