Question

Following the collision of two trains a large number of passengers are killed. A majority of them are beyond recognition. Authorities want to hand over the dead bodies to their relatives. Name a modern scientific method and write the procedure that would help in the identification of kinship.

Answer 1

The DNA polymorphism in simple-sequence DNA and VNTRs is revealed during DNA fingerprinting in establishing kinship since it is very remote possibility to have two individuals with same repeats of satellite DNA throughout the genome except they share a biological relationship. This is because a child gets half DNA from father and half from the mother. Restriction enzymes of genome produce the restriction fragments length polymorphisms, or RFLPs depending on the location of restriction sites which are then sorted by gel electrophoresis followed by southern blotting. The DNA sample from killed passengers and of the sample from possible relatives are compared for sequence homology using radioactive probes and kinship is established.