The Polymerase Chain Reaction replicates strands of DNA through a set method. This method is expensive for geneticists using this process continually to investigate the mitochondrial genome for medical, population and forensic applications. Geneticists are looking at the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) because deformities in mtDNA can result in ‘maternally inherited diseases,’ the somatic cells mutations are believed to influence the processes of aging and cancer, while mtDNA polymorphisms (the coexistence of two or more distinct forms in the same population) are commonly used in population and forensic genetics.
The Affymetrix GeneChip Human Mitochondrial Resequencing Array 2.0 (MitoChip v.2.0) is an inexpensive, fast and accurate method to replicating mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
Through trialling this new technology, scientists have determined that, while the MitoChip is able to replicate mtDNA successfully, rapidly and accurately, a problem with the technology is that it is unable to detect insertions and deletions and it has a low ‘sensitivity and specificity in the detection of heteroplasmy’ (the event of tissue forming/growing where it does not normally occur). Through trial, they found improvements that could be made to the MitoChip to eliminate these faults making it more accurate (99.98%).
References:
http://rp.library.uq.edu.au:9797/MuseSessionID=227177397a4375ff68c619eab29a44/MuseHost=www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/MusePath/sites/entrez
41806689
