A study of the pigment which inhibits enzymatic reaction

2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 14570397
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Legal medicine
• Research Institution: Tokyo Medical University
• Principal Investigator: KUROSAKI Kunihiko Tokyo Medical University, Medicine, Associate Professor, 医学部, 助教授 (60240701)
• Project Period (FY): 2002 – 2003
• Keywords: DNA typing / pigment / hair dye / 染毛剤

Research Abstract

When some pigment infiltrate into a forensic or an anthropological sample such as a hair and a human bone, it is known that DNA typing is impossible in many cases because PCR reaction does not advance. I carried out this study for the purpose of establishing methods for DNA typing from the sample in which the pigment was included.
At first, I tried to remove the pigment of hair dye which inhibits PCR reaction, but could not unfortunately find effective methods to do it. However, even in the case of a hair treated with perpetual hair dye, it became clear that PCR is successful by using template DNAs extracted by the method without the dissolution of the pilar cortex. On the other hand, I paid my attention to natural pigment, which inhibited PCR, in the burial soil. Then, I tried to extract DNA from ancient bone without enzyme inhibition by these pigment ingredients. As a result, even in DNA extracted from the dyed bones, a success rate of DNA typing could be raised by my original method of DNA extraction using silica powder.
In this study, I succeeded in overcoming most, of the enzyme inhibition with natural and synthetic pigments.