How DNA Profiling Is Used in a Paternity Test
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What is DNA?
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DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the genetic information that serves as a set of directions for living things. In humans, a child will inherit half of her genetic information from her mother and the other half of her DNA from her father.
What is DNA Profiling?
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DNA profiling works by taking advantage of known differences in individual DNA. There are regions of DNA that contain variable numbers of tandem repeats, or VNTRs. VNTRs vary between individuals and contain different numbers of a repeating DNA sequence. For example, one individual may have 10 repeats for a given region of DNA, and another person may have hundreds of repeats in this same region. In DNA profiling, a number of different VNTRs are analyzed for a single individual.
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Using DNA Profiling in Paternity Tests
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For paternity tests, a sample of DNA from the potential father and child is taken. Numerous VNTRs are analyzed and then compared between the potential father and the child. It is possible that two individuals that are unrelated may have the same number of VNTRs in a single given region of DNA. However, the chance that two individuals have the same number of VNTRs in multiple different regions of DNA is very small. For a father and a child, there will be a match between VNTRs for multiple different regions of DNA.
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