A Simple Method to Prevent Inhibition of Taq Polymerase and Hinfi Restriction Enzyme in DNA Analysis of Stain Material

Abstract

In forensic science case work DNA analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP’s) and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AmpFLP’s) have become the most powerful methods. But when working with different stain material (i.e. bloodstains, semenstains or vaginal secretions) which may be found on a variety of clothing and other objects, these carriers may interfere with the extraction and subsequent purification of DNA. In some of these cases this prevents restriction and/or amplification. Especially when analyzing cigarette tips restriction with Hinfl and amplification with Taq polymerase may be inhibited. The addition of bovine serum albumin (BSA — Serva, Heidelberg) to the reaction mixture can decrease or overcome these inhibition problems.