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Activity Number:
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194
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Tuesday, August 10, 2004 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
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Sponsor:
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Biometrics Section
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| Abstract - #301186 |
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Title:
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Is Scientific Discovery of DNA Fingerprint by Chance or by Design?
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Author(s):
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Harry Yang*+ and Iksung Cho
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Companies:
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MedImmune, Inc. and MedImmune Vaccines
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Address:
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35 W. Watkins Mill Rd., Gaithersburg, MD, 20878,
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Keywords:
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DNA fingerprint ; restriction enzyme ; partial digestion ; PCR ; probabilistic model ; reproducibility
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Abstract:
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DNA fingerprinting is a microbiological technique widely used to find a DNA sequence specific for a microbe. It involves slicing the genomes of the microbe into DNA fragments with manageable sizes, sorting the DNA pieces by length and finally identifying a DNA sequence unique to the microbe, using probe-based assays. We introduce a probabilistic model to estimate the chance of identifying a specific DNA sequence of any given length from the genome of a microbe when the DNA fingerprinting method is employed. We derive a closed-form functional relationship between the chance of finding a specific DNA sequence, the length of the sequence, cutting efficiency of restriction enzyme and number of copies of the microbe genomes used in the fingerprinting experiment. The model can be potentially used to guide experiments in maximizing the chance of finding a DNA fingerprint of interest. It can also be used to assess the reproducibility of a specific DNA fingerprint discovery. In a broader sense, we demonstrate that the discovery of a DNA fingerprint of a microbe is governed more by chance than by design.
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- The address information is for the authors that have a + after their name.
- Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.
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