Cat-Ching Criminals with DNA from Pet Hairs--Cat Hair Could Be the Purr-Fect Way to Catch Criminals
Published:07 Dec.2023 Source:University of Leicester
Cat hair could be the purr-fect way to catch criminals, according to researchers from the University of Leicester. They have shown that a single cat hair contains DNA which could link a suspect and a crime-scene, or a victim. Around 26 per cent of UK householders own a cat and with the average feline shedding thousands of hairs annually, it's inevitable that once you leave, you'll bear evidence of the furry resident. This is potentially useful in the forensic investigation of criminal activity.
Hair shed by your cat lacks the hair root, so it contains very little useable DNA. In practice researchers can only analyse mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mothers to their offspring, and is shared among maternally related cats. However, a new method identified by the researchers enabled them to determine the sequence of the entire mitochondrial DNA, ensuring it is around ten times more discriminating than a previously used technique which looked at only a short fragment.
The team tested the method in a lost cat case, where DNA from skeletal remains of a missing female cat could be matched with DNA from hair from her surviving male offspring. In criminal cases where there is no human DNA available to test, pet hair is a valuable source of linking evidence. The same approach could also be applied to other species--in particular, dogs.