Anthropology 2235A/B Lecture Notes - Anna Anderson, Cambridge Reference Sequence, Heteroplasmy

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 2235A/B
• Professor: Eldon Molto

Document Summary

Use of mtdna in historical cases: for forensics, mtdna has several advantages over nuclear dna when using degraded tissues and shed hairs 1. High copy number per cell = greater probability of getting dna from degraded samples. Maternal inheritance only (no recombination of gender lines as is found with nuclear dna). Higher but generally stable mutational rate (10x greater) found in the noncoding region, which is composed of hypervariable regions 1 and 2. Comparisons are made easy by comparing the crs differences between exemplar and evidentiary samples. The mitochondrial genome was fully sequenced in 1981 by anderson. Rcrc (revised cambridge reference sequence) was verified by andrews in 1999. Hv1 and hv2 are the regions generally used in forensic cases. mtdna has a high copy number. It is inherited from both parents and is unique to an individual. mtdna has more than 1000 copies per cell. It is maternally inherited and is not unique to an individual.