Recovery of DNA profiles from unfired cartridges using two different sampling methods

DNA analysis on forensic evidence often provides the most probative piece of information for many cases. Unfired cartridges are commonly submitted to crime laboratories as evidence. Traditional methods used to sample this type of evidence involves using a moistened swab to collect DNA from the surfaces of the samples. The approach taken in this study introduced a possible alternative to this conventional swabbing method. The method involved soaking unfired cartridges in digest buffer for a period of time. The results from this study demonstrated that this soaking protocol offers an improvement upon the traditional sampling method. Samples that underwent the soaking protocol exhibited higher total DNA yield, more alleles detected, higher number of complete profiles, and higher number of interpretable profiles