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Home • About Us • Laboratory Services • Forensic Science Communications • Back Issues • July 1999 • Figure 5 of Mitochondrial DNA Analysis at the FBI Laboratory...

Figure 5 of Mitochondrial DNA Analysis at the FBI Laboratory by Isenberg and Moore (Forensic Science Communications, July 1999)

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July 1999 - Volume 1 - Number 2


Mitochondrial DNA Analysis at the FBI Laboratory

Figure 5
Polymerase Chain Reaction

Figure 5: Polymerase Chain Reaction

The polymerase chain reaction is used to make many copies of specific regions of interest in DNA. For mtDNA analysis, only the hypervariable regions are amplified from the extracted material from the entire cell. With each cycle of the reaction, the amount of DNA present theoretically doubles. After 30–40 cycles, many millions of copies of the specified region of DNA are present.

 

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