Odd Question Regarding DNA

Associate
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24 Jan 2006
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Me and a friend were arguing about poo and DNA, as you do.

So to put it simply, can you get a DNA sample from a lump of poo?
 

axe

axe

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1 May 2006
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Yes


"We have successfully identified krill species from the DNA in poo of blue whales"


lots of these took me 5 secs
 
Soldato
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It's been studied, but I don't imagine it's easy since you excrete mainly waste matter (which isn't part of you and thus doesn't carry your DNA). Any "bits" of you that you exctrete (old blood cells, epithelia from the lining of the gut, etc. etc. etc.) will be degraded due to the digestion process, and this would make it more difficult to extract decent DNA samples from. It can be done though.

I'm referring to getting a person's own DNA from their stool sample here btw.
 
Man of Honour
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Yes. Used to be done by mitochondrial, but the advent of LCN (low copy number) has meant that it can be used for DNA profiling from faeces. It is possible because the outside of the stool contains a lot of shed skin from the gut, not all of which has been de-natured by all the digestive enzymes.


M
 
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