Assessing DNA recovery from highly degraded skeletal remains by using silica-based extraction methods

Abstract

Through this study, we extracted human DNA as for five different type of skeletal remains: petrous bone, tooth pulp cavity, tooth cementum, rib and at least two different upper limbs bones (radial, ulna, metacarpal or phalange) from five individuals (5–12th centuries AD) by using four extraction methods; three based on DNA adsorption to silicon dioxide (silica) particles, Non-Columns Silica (NCSi), Silica-HE Spin Columns (SiHEC), Silica-XS Spin Columns (SiXSC) and the traditional organic extraction method (P-Chl) (N:100 DNA extracts). The results showed that the NCSi and SiHEC extraction methods, petrous bones and pulp cavity allowed recovering the highest amount of PCR-amplifiable human mtDNA. The autosomal STRs profiles from petrous DNA presented >70 % reportable alleles and peak heights between 50–498 RFUs using both extraction methods. The lower amount of DNA was showed from rib and P-Chl extraction method.