GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Capture DNA before death?
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 23:22:29 EST

In a message dated 10/31/00 2:14:12 PM Pacific Standard Time,
writes:

> My father is very old, and will probably not be with us much longer. We are
> taking video of him as a keepsake. The question is... can I capture some
> DNA from him for long term keeping?

Yes indeed, but the more complicated question is what's the best way? If you
search the web, you can find hundreds of links to sites which offer various
methods of preserving your DNA. Here are some randomly selected sites.

Some charge just a few dollars for a swab to brush the inside of the cheek
(buccal swab) and a card with chemicals to preserve the DNA
(http://www.flattsolutions.com/index2.ivnu). Lots of these sites seem to be
geared to parents wanting DNA samples of children in case of abductions. You
simply store the card in a dry place.

Some offer a range of services at all price levels, from cards you store
yourself to storage at their own facilities, like
http://www.enegene.com/Index.htm.

Some will store a frozen blood sample for many years, at a cost of a few
hundred dollars, like http://www.bankdna.com.

I want to emphasize that the above sites were picked more-or-less at random
as examples of various approaches. The question I have is whether you need
any commercial kits at all. DNA can be extracted from hair. You do need to
pluck the hair so there is a "bulb" attached at the end to analyze nuclear
DNA; the hair shaft is sufficient for mtDNA studies. There's a small group on
the CONKLIN-L list at rootsweb which is submitting hairs to BYU for a small
project to see whether various early Conklin settlers in America are related.
They only asked for 4-5 hairs per person. Hair is already dry, so it seems
like it should last quite a while.

I even wonder if you could collect your own buccal swabs by buying a new
toothbrush in a plastic case, brushing the inside of your cheeks, letting the
brush dry, and storing it back in the plastic case. The commercial kits have
antibacterial activity -- would storing the toothbrush in alcohol be just as
good? I don't know.

Other things to keep in mind are the quantity of DNA needed. Some studies
require lots of material -- for example, my family is participating in a
study at Boys Town for dominant progressive hearing loss. They wanted a whole
tube of blood, apparently necessary when you are searching for an unknown
gene, compared to testing for a known marker. The BYU group
http://molecular-genealogy.byu.edu/ is collecting whole blood for their
database, too, so I would infer that they plan to study many markers.

Chain of custody might be important in legal situations. In that case you
might want to have divided samples stored in different places, perhaps signed
and notarized.

I'd sure like to hear an unbiased opinion of these various methods. But in
the meantime, it wouldn't hurt anything to collect a dozen or so hairs and
put them in a couple of envelopes.

This thread:

• [DNA] Capture DNA before death? by "John Fairlie" <>

  • Re: [DNA] Capture DNA before death? by