DIY DNA Profiling at home lab

[Mike Petersen]

Hi everybody,

let´s say I wanted to try out DNA Profiling at my home lab. I think of the normal procedure with analyzing the short tandem repeats.
Does anybody of you know where to get a lab protocol?
Is it a very complicated procedure or can it quite easily be done at your home lab?
What kind of equipment is required for that?

Thank you very much

Mike

[Josiah Zayner]

Everything but the sequencing can be done at a home lab(the sequencing can be done but would require much more expensive equipment and reagents).

Basically, all that you need are a PCR machine and reagents. This will run you around $300-$500. After you run the experiment you can send off the samples to a number of sequencing companies who will send you back the DNA sequence for around $4-$7.

Check out http://the-odin.com
We sell most all of this stuff. Contact me if you want me to help guide you through experiments.

Thanks,
     Josiah

[Kermit Henson]

Hi, 

First you need to know if you want to identify sample (ex: cat or dog) or if you want to identify alleles (ex: actn3 r/x)

Try google scholar and sci hub to search for related papers

Second, you need to desing your primers. If you wish to identify samples, that's a PCR plus some sequencing (yes, 4-7e/sample, even 2.1e). If you wish to identify alleles, thats with a qPCR and it gets "expensive".

The protocol is "easy": dna extraction (look for some dna extraction columns at ebay or aliexpress, even ask for free sample.I got 100uds form a usa distributor). Then, prepare the mix is trivial (you need mg buffer, taq, primers...). 

If you are looking for STR with different lenght, with a PCR and an agarose gel it should be enough, otherwise you need to use some sanger sequencing (macrogen, bgi, source biosciences... a lot of them. even research centers if you have some friend inside)

As always, if you explain more your project, we can give you a better approach