Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.
Topic: Mitochondrial DNA sequencing tool updated
Issues addressed over the past two weeks include the continuing importance placed on DNA evidence for immigration purposes. “The number of cases involving DNA testing is still very modest, but testing companies say that in recent years they have seen a sharp increase.”
“President Bush has signed into law provisions that will provide federal grants to local prosecutors to help them prosecute cases stemming from "cold hit" DNA cases.” In New York State, two new laws signed on Wednesday ended the statute of limitations for rape crimes, and require convicted felons to submit a DNA sample for cataloging - allowing law enforcement officials to prosecute felons for the crimes regardless of the passage of time. From an innocence perspective, North Carolina legislature has passed a bill that creates an official government body whose sole job is to give convicts who profess their innocence a chance to make their case.
In California, law enforcement officials hope to start using animal DNA as forensic evidence in criminal investigations. And nationwide, backlogs of unanalyzed DNA evidence continue to grow, causing non-DNA evidence to remain unexamined in many state labs.
Again, we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.
DNA plays larger role in gaining
Blood ties don't always come with a convenient paper trail.
Babies born out of wedlock may not have their fathers' names on their birth certificates. Others born in remote rural areas may not have birth certificates at all.
But everyone has saliva that can be tested for a DNA match.
DNA testing has become an important tool for U.S. immigration officials processing immigrants' requests to bring over family members.
"It is a very valuable tool," said Raymond Adams, district director for Citizenship and Immigration Services. "There's a number of instances where there's no record of a child's birth. You see more of these cases along the Mexico border, where people use midwives and some births are never registered. If someone's born at Sierra Medical Center, it's obviously not an issue."
The number of cases involving DNA testing is still very modest -- about two a year in El Paso, Adams said -- but testing companies say that in recent years they have seen a sharp increase.
The way it works is that applicants go to a local doctor to have the saliva samples taken and sent to an approved laboratory. The laboratory mails the results back to immigration authorities. The immigrants pay the costs.
CIS officials said they do not track how often DNA testing is used in immigration and citizenship cases. They said the DNA is used only for immigration purposes and is not put into a database.
Source: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_4212533
President signs Gallegly bill on 'cold hit' DNA cases
President Bush has signed into law provisions championed by U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (RThousand Oaks) that will provide federal grants to local prosecutors to help them prosecute cases stemming from "cold hit" DNA cases, cases where DNA on file matches evidence in a previously unsolved crime.
Gallegly's provisions were included in "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act," which recently had passed both the House and Senate.
Gallegly and Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten, who brought the need for the DNA funding to Gallegly's attention, were invited to the White House bill-signing ceremony by President Bush.
"DNA technology is solving crimes years and sometimes decades old," Gallegly said. "Murderers, rapists and child molesters need to know they will be caught, prosecuted and pay for their crimes."
The DNA provisions come from Gallegly's bill, "The Grants for DNA Backlog Prosecutions Act," which he introduced last year.
DNA cold hit cases tend to be complex murder and sexual assault crimes. In Ventura County alone, Totten estimated DNA cold hits could identify a perpetrator in more than 300 unsolved homicide cases.
"The number of rape and homicide cases solved through DNA technology is increasing at an astonishing rate every year and is quickly outpacing the ability of prosecutors to keep up," Totten said. "In recognizing and attacking this national problem, Congressman Gallegly's bill is a direct aid to victims in Ventura County and elsewhere who have longed to finally see justice done for their loved ones. Once again, Congressman Gallegly has demonstrated an unyielding commitment to law enforcement and crime victims."
According to the California District Attorneys Association, the database averages three cold hit cases a day. As of late 2005, 1,200 cold hits had been made in California, with forecasts that it will lead to 4,000 new cases a year.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref03.html
New Laws Aid Rape Victims
Two new laws signed on Wednesday ended the statute of limitations for rape crimes in New York State, and requires convicted felons to submit a DNA sample for cataloging.
“Previous laws allowed rapists to avoid prosecution by running from law enforcement,” says New York State Senator John J. Flanagan (R-Smithtown), a sponsor of the bill. “This new law puts an end to this ludicrous practice. Rape victims deserve our protection and our laws must reflect the idea that the victims are the ones whose rights are important.”
The first of the two new laws will eliminate of the statute of limitations for Class B felony sexual assault crimes, including first-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act (formerly called sodomy), first-degree aggravated sexual abuse and first-degree charge of sexual conduct against a child. This allows law enforcement officials to prosecute felons for the crimes regardless of the passage of time. Previously, 5 years prior to the incident prosecutors could no longer charge a suspect.
In addition, victims of rape will now have up to five years to pursue civil action against their assailants, either after the incident or five years after criminal proceedings.
The second of the two new laws requires that all convicted felons, as well as those convicted of 18 common misdemeanors, must submit a DNA sample to the state.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref04.html
North Carolina Breaks New Ground with 'Innocence Panel'
Let's suppose an American jury or judge has found you guilty of a serious crime. But you are in fact innocent. Too bad. To prison you go, to do the time with little chance to prove you really did not do the crime.
Your lawyer can file an appeal, but only by citing some procedural error in court that robbed you of a fair trial. The appeals judges don't want to hear your protestations of innocence. After all, a judge or jury of your peers has already weighed the evidence and found you guilty.
Once you're behind bars, belated DNA or other forensic evidence of your innocence occasionally surfaces, and there are mechanisms to get this evidence before a court. But this process can, and usually does, take two, three -- sometimes five or more years, which makes the news out of North Carolina quite remarkable. At the urging of a former state chief justice, the North Carolina legislature has passed, and the governor has signed, a bill creating what's called the "North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission." Its sole job will be to hear claims of innocence from imprisoned men and women.
The commission will have eight members, including a judge, a prosecutor, a sheriff, a defense lawyer, and a victims' advocate. Five of the eight must agree the convict is likely innocent for the case to advance to an appeals panel of three judges.
What's unique about this is that there's now an official government body whose sole job is to give convicts who profess their innocence a chance to make their case. Even those who originally pleaded guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence will eventually have a place to go to say, "No, despite what I said earlier, I am innocent of the crime.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref05.html
Orange County law enforcement officials say they hope to start using D-N-A from pets and other animals as forensic evidence in criminal investigations.
County authorities plan to cooperate on investigations with the Serological Research Institute in Richmond. That would make it the first local law enforcement agency in the country to make animal D-N-A a primary source of evidence.
Using animal evidence has been rare because few crime labs have accreditation for testing animals, but it's already helped solve some crimes.
Hairs from a cat named on a bloody jacket to help linked a man to the murder of his estranged wife in Canada. And urine sprayed on a truck tire by an Iowa farm dog helped identify the man who tried to rape his owner.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref06.html
U.S. crime labs are being forced to neglect the more common forms of forensic data because of pressure to clear a growing backlog of unanalyzed DNA evidence.
Earl Wells with the American Society of Crime Lab Directors says DNA evidence, which deals with genetic markers in body products, accounts for about 5 percent of work at most crime labs, reports Stateline.org.
But he says state and federal lawmakers' attention remain focused on DNA backlogs because DNA "happens to be the hot topic today."
Because of this, Wells said, non-DNA evidence sits unexamined in most of the nation's estimated 350 publicly funded crime labs, says the Stateline report.
Legal experts told Stateline such backlogs result in keeping prisoners behind bars longer than needed. They also increase pressure on labs to speed up their work, thereby increasing chances of errors.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref07.html
New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include:
Colorado - The case against John M. Karr in the 1996 killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey collapsed Monday when DNA tests refuted Mr. Karr’s claims that he had committed the crime.
The announcement by the Boulder County district attorney, Mary T. Lacy, incited a storm of questions about why Mr. Karr, 41, had been believed in his admissions and how he could have led prosecutors into what became an elaborate global farce.
In a motion asking a judge to dismiss the arrest warrant, Ms. Lacy wrote that Mr. Karr’s obsession with the case and its details, combined with his own statement of guilt, had compelled her to act first and test later. But in the end, she said, his words were all there was.
“No evidence has developed, other than his own repeated admissions, to place Mr. Karr at the scene of the crime,” she wrote. “Mr. Karr was not the source of the DNA found in the underwear of JonBenet Ramsey.”
What is next for Mr. Karr is uncertain. He still faces five misdemeanor counts in California of possessing child pornography on his computer. In 2001, he was held in the Sonoma County Jail for six months and then released, with bail waived. When he failed to appear at a court date, the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
The district attorney in Sonoma, Stephan R. Passalacqua, said in a written statement that Mr. Karr would be extradited back to face those charges.
In her five-page motion to dismiss the case, Ms. Lacy said that Mr. Karr’s interest in young girls, largely revealed in e-mail correspondence and telephone conversations with a University of Colorado journalism professor, Michael Tracey, supported the notion that Mr. Karr’s talk of a personal involvement in the Ramsey killing might have been real.
Under the pseudonym Daxis, Mr. Karr told Professor Tracey that he had been involved romantically and sexually with young girls, that age 6 was his preference, and that he had accidentally killed JonBenet Ramsey by leaving a garrote around her neck longer than he intended, then striking her on the head. Daxis said he wanted the information included in a book that Professor Tracey was intending to publish.
“Daxis provided details of his recollection of how JonBenet died,” Ms. Lacy wrote in the letter, “in a way that supported the conclusion that he firmly believed that he loved JonBenet Ramsey, that he had involved her in sexual activities that included temporarily asphyxiating her and that he had ‘accidentally’ killed her.”
Only after his detention, she said, were investigators able to question people about his past and his whereabouts on Dec. 25 and 26, 1996, the time of the crime. His family in Georgia provided “strong circumstantial evidence” that he had been with them that Christmas.
Criminal justice experts said the case demonstrated the difficulties sometimes presented by DNA evidence, even as it becomes a standard of proof in more prosecutions. Rules vary on how and when samples can be taken and on what constitutes consent from a suspect.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref08.html
Colorado - A judge on Tuesday ordered John Mark Karr, the former suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, sent to Sonoma County, Calif., to face five child pornography possession charges dating to 2001.
If convicted, he could get a year in prison on each count. For now, the 41-year-old teacher is being held in a Boulder, Colo., jail awaiting extradition that must occur by Sept. 13.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref09.html
Kentucky - It's been more than a decade in the making, police announced Thursday morning they've made an arrest in a string of violent rapes that span three counties
Trevor Johnson is the suspect in four violent rapes. Police say he kidnapped a 19-year-old woman at knife point and raped her back in 1993 in Lexington.
He's also accused of attacking 21-year-old woman in Versailles in 1996. Just a few months later police say he raped a 64-year old Versailles woman.
In December of 1996 investigators say he raped a 14-year-old girl inside Anderson County high school.
Police connected the crimes using DNA evidence
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref10.html
Florida - A Lake County Jail inmate was charged in a year-old rape case Friday when authorities matched his DNA with evidence from the complainant.
Deputies suspect Pernell L. Johnson, 28, of Eustis picked up a hitchhiker in April 2005 and held a gun to her head, demanding she perform oral sex, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office. The woman told deputies Johnson also forced her to have intercourse in the back seat of his car.
Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement matched Johnson's DNA with samples taken from the woman.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref11.html
Texas - A forensic serologist testifying Friday in the federal trial of a fired San Antonio police officer accused of raping a transsexual said DNA from semen retrieved by investigators matches the genetic profile of the officer.
The testimony of Garon Foster, technical leader of serology and DNA at the Bexar County crime lab, appeared to overshadow the gains defense lawyers had made for their client, Dean Gutierrez, during the first week of trial. Prosecutors rested their case shortly afterward.
Gutierrez, a 16-year police veteran, was placed on indefinite suspension — tantamount to being fired — because of the rape allegations.
Gutierrez is charged with depriving the civil rights of Gabriel Bernal by committing aggravated sexual abuse, and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref12.html
Illinois - Police detectives said they were only humoring a man who flagged down their unmarked car and offered them an unsolicited DNA sample.
Then they got a surprise from the crime lab.
The sample matched an unrelated rape case from 2000, investigators said, leading to charges against the St. Louis man.
Christopher Swift, 30, is charged with rape, sodomy, kidnapping, second-degree robbery and felonious restraint.
He is accused of an attack on a woman, then 42, who told police she fell asleep in her car and woke up to find a man raping her. Until Swift's DNA results came in, police had no suspects.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref13.html
Missouri - DNA evidence collected from an April robbery in Cape Girardeau matched a local suspect, authorities said.
Ronald D. Heyl, unknown age, of Cape Girardeau, was charged Wednesday with felony first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. He was being held in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref14.html
Georgia - Rome police think they’ve cracked a 13-year-old cold case, thanks to some new technology and solid police work.
Wayne Allen Crawford, 44, was in jail Thursday night on charges of rape and aggravated sodomy in connection with the decade-old case, according to Floyd County Jail records.
The incident for which Crawford is charged occurred in 1993 when an unknown assailant crept up on a woman as she slept. “She was asleep on the couch, and the guy broke in, woke her out of her sleep and blindfolded her,” said Stephanie Hill-Hudson, a detective with the Rome Police Department.
The assailant then raped and sodomized the victim, who could not identify the man because she was blindfolded.
Police collected DNA evidence from the woman and interviewed a number of people but weren’t able to come up with any real suspects, Hill-Hudson said. After 13 years, it seemed unlikely they would ever have one.
That all changed in January when Crawford’s DNA popped up in a federal database as a match for the DNA from the rape.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref15.html
Kentucky - Four separate rape cases in three central Kentucky counties have all been linked to one man.
39-year-old Trevor Devon Johnson is just now being charged with the rape of a Lexington woman that happened back in 1993.
Through DNA testing, authorities also linked Johnson to rapes in 1996 -- two sexual assaults in Woodford County and one in Anderson County.
Investigators were able to crack these cases due to a grant which was given to Kentucky to work cold cases.
The grant allowed lab experts to compare DNA in cold cases with the DNA of convicted felons. That’s how the match came about in these four cases.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref16.html
Colorado - Authorities in Colorado used moose D-N-A to track down a Wisconsin hunter and convict him of poaching.
State wildlife managers began investigating after a bear dug up a moose skull near Saint Elmo.
A citizen's tip pointed them to Charles Pedraza of Oshkosh (Wis).
Authorities say a search of a storage unit held by Pedraza turned up a moose pelt and photos that placed him at the scene. A D-N-A test confirmed the pelt belonged to the moose whose skull was found. Pedraza then pleaded guilty to poaching.
A judge in Chaffee County, Colorado ordered Pedraza to pay an eleven-thousand dollar fine.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref17.html
North Dakota - As she lay dying in a ravine, Dru Sjodin may have made a desperate phone call for help, prosecutors in the trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. seemed to suggest to jurors Tuesday.
Less than three hours after the college student disappeared in November 2003, her boyfriend got a call from Sjodin's phone and heard wind and three tones — as if someone were pushing buttons.
The line disconnected, but Sjodin's phone stayed on for hours as Grand Forks police desperately tried to use the signal to locate the missing University of North Dakota student.
Sjodin's body was found April 17, 2004, in a desolate area outside Crookston, Minn., five months after she vanished from a Grand Forks, N.D., shopping mall. Her hands were bound and her throat cut. Authorities found the phone about 15 yards away.
Suggesting that Sjodin was alive when she was dumped could help prosecutors counter defense arguments that the kidnapping and slaying happened in North Dakota. Defense attorneys contend that Rodriguez should not be facing a federal charge — which carries the death penalty — because the crime did not involve multiple states.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, an option not available had Rodriguez been charged in Minnesota or North Dakota courts.
The image of a bound and terrified Sjodin dialing for help also could help the state reinforce for jurors the suffering she endured.
Rodriguez's attorneys seemed to suggest Sjodin's phone might have dialed when it fell while her body was being dumped.
Rodriguez, 53, is charged with kidnapping across state lines causing death. He is being tried in federal court in Fargo.
Three scientists took the stand to testify about fibers, bloodstains and a hair they concluded link the suspect to the victim.
A forensic scientist matched fibers from the black wool coat and pink cotton blouse Sjodin was last seen wearing to black and pink fibers found in Rodriguez's car.
Susan Gross, a scientist with Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, testified that different types of fibers found in Rodriguez's car, at his house, on Sjodin's clothing and on a knife sheath found near Sjodin's car linked the suspect and the victim.
Gross used a chart to show the jurors how all the fibers matched up.
There is no way to determine how rare a fiber is, Gross testified, but added the number and different types of fibers linking the suspect and the victim was "quite significant."
FBI scientist Les McCurdy testified that a hair plucked from the black coat on Sjodin's body could have come from Rodriguez based on another form of testing called mitochondrial DNA testing.
While mitochondrial DNA is not unique to one person, it can help significantly narrow down a suspect pool. Investigators test for mitochondrial DNA when they don't have a large enough sample to test for nuclear DNA, which is unique to every person except identical twins.
The mitochondrial DNA from the hair on the coat matched Rodriguez's mitochondrial DNA. Less than one-half of 1 percent of the Hispanic population has the same mitochondrial DNA as Rodriguez, McCurdy testified.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref18.html
Cincinnati - A man already serving time for attempting to abduct a 12-year-old girl has now been found guilty in a 1996 rape.
Timothy Dick, 35, was arrested in June 2004 after he attacked the girl while claiming to look for a lost dog. Her screams brought her father to the scene, and he tackled Dick and held him until police arrived.
Dick was sentenced to four years in prison in 2005.
After his conviction, Dick's DNA was submitted for testing and found to match DNA found in the earlier crime.
Police said that in November 1996, Dick attacked and raped a 15-year-old Symnes Township girl who was waiting for a school bus on Fields-Ertel Road.
Dick was sentenced to an additional 14 years in prison on Monday.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref19.html
California - Advances in D-N-A technology have allowed investigators to arrest a 41-year-old man in a 20-year-old unsolved double-murder.
Merced County Sheriff's officials say Robert Daniel Thompson, of Crescent City, was arrested Thursday in the 1986 deaths of 15-year-old and 12-year-old girls in 1986.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_26_sep_06/vol26_ref20.html
Did You Know?
Topic: Mitochondrial DNA sequencing tool updated
High-tech laboratory tools, like computers, are often updated publicly as their analytical capabilities expand. In the September issue of the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, NIH grantees report they have developed a second generation "lab on a silicon chip" called the MitoChip v2.0 that for the first time rapidly and reliably sequences all mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles that power our cells, are unique because they are equipped with their own genetic instructions distinct from the DNA stored in the cell nucleus.
The authors say their full-sequence chip will be a key tool in accelerating research on mitochondrial DNA, a growing area of scientific interest. This interest stems from data that suggests natural sequence variations and/or mutations in each person's mitochondrial DNA could be biologically informative in fields as diverse as cancer diagnostics, gerontology, and criminal forensics.
According to Dr. Joseph Califano, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and senior author on the paper, the MitoChip v2.0 showed in his group's hands better sensitivity that its predecessor to sequence variations in head and neck cancer samples. The v2.0 also detected nearly three dozen variations in the non-coding D-loop, long considered to be a sequencing no-man's land and which the original MitoChip did not include.
"At this point, we don't foresee a MitoChip v3.0," said Califano, whose research was supported by the NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. "The v2.0 is a very good tool in that we've also arrayed 500 of the most common haplotypes - or grouped patterns of known DNA variations - banked in the mitochondrial public database."
Mitochondria are oblong, thread-like structures dispersed throughout the cell's cytoplasm. Hundreds to thousands of mitochondria exist in each human cell, occupying up to a quarter of their cytoplasm. Sometimes informally described as "cellular power plants," mitochondria convert organic materials into ATP, the cell's energy currency and without which life would cease.
As early as the 1920s, scientists uncovered clues that mitochondria might play a role in causing cancer. But like the other DNA in the cell nucleus, scientists lacked the needed research tools throughout most of the 20th century to systematically study the chemical composition of the mitochondrial genome, or complete set of genes, and its association to human disease.
In the early 1980s, scientists in England performed the then-Herculean feat of sequencing the complete human mitochondrial genome. The genome consisted of 16,568 base pair, or units, of DNA and encoded 37 contiguous genes. But because of the balky sequencing tools of the day and their high cost, much of the subsequent research progressed slowly or stalled.
By 1996, new technology brought new opportunity. Scientists with the company Affymetrix in Santa Clara, Calif. developed the first mitochondrial sequencing microarray. Roughly the size of a quarter, the silicon chip had lithographically annealed to it up to 135,000 short, arrayed bits of DNA sequence that, collectively, spanned most of a single strand of mitochondrial DNA.
The chip exploited the fact that DNA exists naturally as a double-stranded molecule. By gathering mitochondrial DNA and breaking it into short, single-stranded bits, the scientists showed that each bit would pair, or hybridize, with its complementary sequence arrayed on the chip. By crude analogy, each bit is like a unique magnet that sticks to its mirror image.
But if the extracted DNA contains mutations or other variations from the standard consensus sequence annealed to the chip, the bits with those changes would appear abnormal to the specially designed computer software programs that read the chip. The software programs will read not only the identity of the expected bases of DNA in a process called "base calling" but those of the variations.
The Affymatrix chip enabled laboratories to resequence the mitochondrial genome much faster than the traditional manual and automated strategies. Just as importantly, like an iPod to music lover, the chip served as the broad technological platform for laboratories to customize arrays more attuned to their research interests.
In 2004, Dr. Anirban Maitra and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins did exactly that with the MitoChip v1.0. In addition to nitty-gritty technical innovations that vastly improved the rate and speed of the chip, the v1.0 marked the first mitochondrial resequencing microarray designed as a potential screening tool for cancer. "With mitochondrial DNA, there is a mass advantage," said Dr. Anirban Maitra, an author on this month's paper whose research is supported by the NIH's National Cancer Institute. "Whereas nuclear DNA contains just two copies of every gene, there are literally hundreds of mitochondria in most cells. If you are screening saliva or other bodily fluids with a limited number of cells to analyze, mitochondrial DNA gives you more to work with and a better chance of detecting mutations that might be associated with a developing cancer."
Dr. Maitra said that despite the original Mitochip's 96 percent success rate assigning base calls, there was room for improvement. Led by Drs. Shaoyu Zhou and Keyaunoosh Kassauei, the Hopkins group cobbled together the MitoChip v2.0. reported in this month's Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. It yielded essentially the same base-call success rate as its predecessor, showed near perfect reproducibility in replicate experiments, and detected more variations than the first-generation chip.
As a proof of principle, the Mitochip v2.0 also detected 31 variations in the non-coding D-loop of 14 head and neck tumor samples. Included in this tally were several mutations that possibly are informative of the disease.
"The real interesting thing is nobody has been able to study these D-loop alterations very well," said Califano "They clearly occur in tumor cells, and there is some type of selection process for them. But their functional significance has been hard to know. Now, you can sequence the D loop so readily and begin to look harder for associations in certain cancers."
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-08/niod-mds082206.php
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