The information in DNA can be used for many purposes.

Read the following passage

to see how the information can be useful.

DNA fingerprinting and DNA typing

Southern Blots are not just a research tool. They are widely used in forensic
laboratories to identify individuals who have left blood or other DNA- containing
tissues at the scenes of crimes. Such DNA typing has its roots in a discovery by Alec
Jeffreys and his colleagues in 1985. These workers were investigating a DNA
fragment from a gene of a human blood protein, α-globin, when they discovered that
this fragment contained a sequence of bases repeated several times. This kind of
repeated DNA is called minisatellite. More interestingly, they found similar
minisatellite sequences in other places in the human genome, again repeated several
times. This simple finding turned out to have far-reaching consequences, because
individuals differ in the pattern of repeats of the basic sequence. In fact, two
individuals have only a remote chance of having exactly the same pattern. That
means that these patterns are like fingerprints; indeed they are called DNA
fingerprints.

A DNA fingerprint is actually a southern blot. To make one, investigators first cut
out the DNA under study with a restriction enzyme such as HaeIII. Jeffreys chose this
enzyme because the sequence he had found did not contain a HaeIII recognition site.
That means HeaIII will cut on either side of the minisatellite regions, but not inside.
In this case, the DNA has three sets of repeated regions, containing four, three, and
two repeats, respectively (some regions containing unrelated DNA sequences). Thus,
three different – size fragments bearing these repeated regions will be produced.

Next, the fragments are electrophoresed, denatured, and blotted. The blot is then
probed with a labeled minisatellite DNA, and the labeled bands are detected with X –
ray film, or by phosphor imaging. In this case, three labeled bands occur, so three
dark bands will appear on the film.

Real animals have more complex genome than the simple piece of DNA in this
example, so they will have many more than three fragments that contain a
minisatellite sequence that will react with the probe. As we have already mentioned,
this is such a complex pattern of fragments that the patterns for two individuals are
extremely unlikely to be identical, unless they come from monozygotic twins. This
complexity makes DNA fingerprinting a very powerful identification technique.
1 Southern blot is an identification technique in the police work.

True
False

2 Alec Jeffreys and his colleagues in 1985 discovered Southern blots.

False
True

3 Generally, individuals differ in the pattern of repeats of the basic sequences in

DNA

False
True

4 DNA fingerprinting is the most widely used identification technique for

criminal identification.

False
True

5 Police can identify a criminal from his identical twin using DNA
fingerprinting.

True
False

6 A restriction enzyme such as HaeIII will cut on inside the minisatellite

regions.

True
False