Factors Affecting DNA Yields from Serum and Plasma Samples Used for Personal Identification Testing

Ji Hyun Lee; Boram Kim; Sohee Cho; Hee Jin Seo; Soong Deok Lee

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2016.40.3.78

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Lee, Kim, Cho, Seo, and Lee: Factors Affecting DNA Yields from Serum and Plasma Samples Used for Personal Identification Testing

Original Article

Korean J Leg Med 2016;40(3):78-82.

Published online: 19 December 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2016.40.3.78

Factors Affecting DNA Yields from Serum and Plasma Samples Used for Personal Identification Testing

Ji Hyun Lee^1∗, Boram Kim^1∗, Sohee Cho², Hee Jin Seo¹, Soong Deok Lee^1,²

¹Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

²Institute of Forensic Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence to Soong Deok Lee Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03080, Korea Tel: +82-2-740-8359 Fax: +82-2-764-8340 E-mail: sdlee@snu.ac.kr

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 26 July 201622 August 2016 Accepted 26 August 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Serum or plasma is free of cellular components. As DNA is in the nucleus or mitochondria of a cell, it can be presumed that serum/plasma is DNA free. However, there are cases wherein serum/plasma is the only resource available for identification analysis, yet no sufficient data are available regarding whether reliable DNA testing can be applied to such cases, and what the influencing factors are when testing is a valid course of action. The aim of this study is to illustrate the factors that can be used in the genetic testing of serum/plasma when identifying an individual. The results showed that the concentration of serum DNA significantly increased over time in 4°C storage, and the DNA yields from samples stored in heparin tubes were overall higher than from samples stored in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid tubes. We observed that the concentration of DNA in serum successfully matched 100% to the short tandem repeat data of blood DNA.

Keywords: Serum, Plasma, DNA fingerprinting, Identification

REFERENCES

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Fig. 1.

Box plots of DNA concentrations in serum (A, B) and plasma (C). RT, room temperature; EDTA, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid.

Fig. 2.

Electropherograms of the amplified DNA from one sample. (A) Peak exceeding the 50-RFU threshold is present. (B) Peaks exceeding the 40-RFU threshold are present. RFU, relative fluorescence unit.

Table 1.

Amount of DNA recovered from donors (15 and 14) with time-temperature differences by two-way ANOVA

Time	RT (ng/μL)	4°C (ng/μL)	t	p-value
0 hr	0.1441±0.1480	0.1441±0.1480	0	>0.990
1 hr	0.1525±0.1228	0.1875±0.2687	0.0799	0.937
2 hr	0.1125±0.1136	0.0839±0.0723	0.0652	0.948
4 hr	0.1039±0.0778	0.2597±0.2171	0.3554	0.723
8 hr	0.1636±0.3502	0.2216±0.1060	0.1323	0.895
12 hr	0.1530±0.2022	0.3362±0.2755	0.4179	0.677
24 hr	0.1177±0.0682	0.9903±0.9097	1.991	0.049
48 hr	0.2321±0.1585	4.939±4.767	10.74	<0.001
0 day	0.2025±0.1938	0.2025±0.1938	0	>0.990
1 day	0.0552±0.0338	0.7881±1.099	0.8800	0.380
2 days	0.0639±0.0561	1.845±2.136	2.138	0.033
3 days	0.1391±0.1136	3.228±3.150	3.709	<0.001
4 days	0.1746±0.1018	2.961±3.026	3.345	0.001
5 days	0.3432±0.1755	3.030±3.250	3.226	0.001
6 days	0.5806±0.2739	3.674±5.452	3.714	<0.001
7 days	0.5105±0.2885	2.798±2.936	2.746	0.006
8 days	0.7600±0.3676	2.768±4.107	2.411	0.017
9 days	1.066±0.5695	2.144±3.483	1.295	0.196
10 days	1.444±0.6514	1.670±1.706	0.2717	0.786

Values are presented as mean±standard deviation. RT, room temperature.

Table 2.

Amount of DNA recovered from 15 donors with time-anticoagulant (heparin, EDTA) differences by two-way ANOVA

Time	Heparin (ng/μL)	EDTA (ng/μL)	t	p-value
0 hr	0.2672±0.1352	0.0448±0.0661	2.608	0.013
1 hr	0.8045±0.3414	0.0877±0.0828	8.406	<0.001
3 hr	0.0712±0.1836	0.2056±0.0621	1.576	0.123
7 hr	0.4122±0.1797	0.1632±0.4480	2.920	0.006

Values are presented as mean±standard deviation. EDTA, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid.

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