Y-chromosome DNA extraction from post-cranial skeletal elements

With a reported number of over 8,000 individual sets of human remains unidentified in the United States, improved methods are necessary to collect and accurately extract DNA from human bone while being minimally destructive. Methods are not standardized for where on the skeletal remains to collect bone samples and often result in sampling far more material than is needed. The molecular yields observed in trabecular and cortical bone samples taken from human remains could help determine what sample types are needed for successful DNA analysis. With a hypothesis stating that due to the structure of trabecular bone, samples that contain only the trabecular bone yield higher amounts of DNA molecules than samples taken from cortical bone, this project took the preliminary steps in improving DNA sampling and extraction methods by analyzing the yield of Y-chromosome DNA from the two bone types. This project sampled 40 locations throughout the skeleton from each bone type and subjected them to quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis. The results contradict the hypothesis and indicate that cortical bone samples yield higher amounts of DNA than trabecular. The data collected from this project has provided a steppingstone to improve methods of DNA sampling of human skeletal remains. The data could be used not only to improve methods in forensic contexts but could be used for military identifications, ancestry estimations for potentially Indigenous remains, etc. Further research is needed to increase the validity of the results and affect the current methods used in the field