3. Results and discussion
3.1. Selection, optimisation and verification of methods developed
Methods already in use in the MBL for the extraction of DNA
from hair samples were selected for adaption to nail material
donated from live volunteers. The use of existing methods allowed
for easy implementation without requiring the purchase of
additional equipment or reagents. Live donor volunteers were
used to prevent the unnecessary removal of material from
deceased individuals during protocol optimisation. Both optimised
methods were successful in extracting sufficient amounts of DNA
from toenail samples (collected from live volunteers) to produce
full STR profiles (data not shown). It was found during optimisation
of both methods that using less than 0.01 g of toenail material for
extraction resulted in partial profiles in most instances.
For the organic extraction, full profiles were obtained from the
toenails in 29/44 (66%) of the volunteer samples, when compared
to the reference profile from the volunteer buccal swab using the
2 h extraction incubation over all the wash durations tested. The
remaining extractions yielded partial profiles with the alleles
called matching those of the reference profile. When only the data
from the 0.5 h wash condition is used, full profiles were obtained in