A group of bodies are found buried in a forest. The police suspect that they may include the missing Jones family (two parents and two children). They extract DNA from bones and examine (using PCR) genes A and B, which are known to contain tandem triplet repeats of variable length. They also analyze DNA from two other men. The results are shown below where the numbers indicate the number of copies of a tandem repeat in a particular allele; for example, male 1 has one allele with 8 and another allele with 9 copies of a tandem repeat in gene A.

Could the woman have been the mother of both children? Why or why not? Which man, if any, could have been the father of child 1?

Transcribed Image Text:

Gene A Gene B 5/7 8/9 Male 1 Male 2 6/8 5/5 Male 3 7/10 7/7 Woman 8/8 3/5 Child 1 5/7 7/8 Child 2 8/8 3/7