Principles of Forensic DNA for Officers of the Court

Stochastic Effects in DNA Amplification

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Sometimes forensic evidence samples contain quantities of DNA that are very small. When an analyst tries to copy the DNA using PCR, the result can be an unbalanced representation of the alleles present and in an extreme case can cause allelic dropout. This can make interpretation of the data difficult and may result in an improper reporting of the DNA profile.

See definition of stochastic effects.

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