Laboratory operative protocol for the identification of a genetic profile in human degraded remains

When an organism dies, its DNA is degraded by endogenous nucleases, and DNA degradation is further promoted by the destabilising effects of deamination, depurination and hydrolytic processes. Thus a long delay before post-mortem may cause cumulative damage to DNA molecules that is so extensive that none remain for their detection by standard molecular methods. The retrieval of DNA sequences from forensic specimens is also far from routine, and very often little or no DNA molecules may be detected, especially in ancient tissues. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how, in strong degradation situations, you can use markers/alternative strategies than conventional methods.