- DNA fingerprinting is a very fast way to differentiate between the DNA sequences of any two individuals.
- Its main objective is to find out the genetic differences between two individuals or among a population.
- This technique of DNA fingerprinting was first developed by Alec Jeffreys.
- Satellite DNA was used as a probe by him that shows a very high degree of polymorphism.
- It involves identifying differences in some specific regions in DNA sequence called repetitive DNA because in these sequences small segments of DNA are repeated many times.
- These sequences generally do not code for any proteins, but they form a large portion of the human genome.
- These sequences show a high degree of polymorphism and form the basis of DNA fingerprinting.
- In case of disputes, DNA fingerprinting is the basis of paternity testing as the polymorphism is inheritable from parents to children.
- DNA from a single cell is enough to perform DNA fingerprinting analysis.
