The World Leader in Private DNA Testing

It has been recently reported in the media that cheek swabs have been taken from over 400 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, most of whom were removed from the YFZ ranch in Eldorado, Texas, earlier this month. These swabs contain DNA that will be used for DNA testing in order to establish biological relationships among the members of the sect. Once the testing is complete, it will be up to the state of Texas to determine what is in the best interest for each child.

We asked Dr. Michael Baird, DDC’s Laboratory Director, to give his insights on the types of DNA testing that will likely take place in this case. The following article was written by Dr. Baird. For more information on Dr. Baird, please see his profile here.

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Because of the unique nature of this circumstance, there may be initial difficulties in sorting out biological relationships of the individuals tested, but the science of DNA testing should be up to the challenge.

The FLDS case is an example of a complicated pedigree analysis. As in all relationship testing, sample identification and tracking is critical. Standard laboratory procedures used to develop and analyze the DNA profiles should produce the information to determine the biological parents of the children.

The key steps in accomplishing this task are:

1. Step One: Identify Each Person
First, the information collected at the time the samples are collected should be detailed enough to identify the individuals. Since many of the individuals may not have government photo identification, photographs and fingerprints will likely provide important information for future identification.

2. Step Two: Establish Maternal Links—Who is Each Child’s Biological Mother?
Once DNA profiles are developed for each sample, the biological mothers of the children can be identified by comparing the DNA samples taken from the alleged mothers to those of the children who were tested. Standard maternity analysis should provide the genetic information to identify the biological mothers of the children, provided all alleged mothers submitted DNA samples.

3. Step Three: Establish Paternal Links—Who is Each Child’s Biological Father?
The next step is to determine the biological fathers of the children. Again, provided all alleged fathers have submitted samples, the science of DNA testing should be able to identify the biological father of each child by comparing markers on each tested father’s DNA to the markers on the children’s DNA.

However, depending on how the tested parties are related, additional testing may be required to sort out the biological parents. For example, if the alleged fathers of a child are brothers, additional testing that examines more DNA locations may be required to exclude one brother, if one of the brothers is indeed the true biological father.

Additionally, examining the Y-Chromosome markers in male children could help to establish paternal lineages that might be useful in this case. Likewise, mitochondrial DNA testing can help to establish maternal lineages. Other issues, like closely related mothers or inter-family marriages, can make the testing more challenging, but the science should be able prevail.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm and is filed under DNA Paternity Testing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.