AI 171 crash: Advanced DNA profiling helped piece together familial links

Time of India

a day ago

Ahmedabad: Four of the 241 victims aboard the ill-fated AI 171 flight were a man, his wife, son and daughter. The forensic experts first relied on the man's paternal uncle to get a sample for the Y-STR (short tandem repeat) test.
The relationship, however, did not prove helpful in establishing an identity beyond doubt. So, the experts again reached out to the family to request a sample of the deceased man's mother and performed the X-STR test.
"The strategy worked. Through careful kinship analysis using advanced DNA profiling, the team successfully established the man's identity, which proved to be key in identifying three other members of the family," said H P Sanghvi, director of the Directorate of Forensic Sciences (DFS).
The identity of the last unidentified passenger aboard AI 171 was also confirmed on Friday. A team of 40 forensic scientists from the DFS and the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) worked tirelessly to establish the identities of 254 of 260 crash victims based on DNA matches, a mammoth task that posed unique challenges.
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Dr Malay Shukla, coordinator at Centre of Excellence (CoE) in DNA Forensics, said that one of the cases involved three members of a family — a man, his wife and daughter.
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"In this case, we got the reference DNA from the couple's other daughter. Autosomal (non-sex chromosome) markers were used to narrow down the connection between the victims and the donor. To verify that all four were related to each other, X-STRs were used.
With the use of both X-STR and autosomal STR, we could establish the identities," said Prof Shukla.
Dr Bhargav Patel, head of the CoE in DNA Forensics at NFSU, said that they have matched the DNA samples of the victims with nephews, cousins, grandparents and maternal or paternal uncles.
"In conventional matches, we generally rely on either X-STR, Y-STR or autosomal STR test to establish identities. But in the cases associated with the crash, more than one test was employed in several cases. In some of the cases, even mitochondrial DNA matches were used. While nuclear DNA (with X and Y chromosomes) is inherited from both parents, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited maternally," he said.
The X-STR markers are inherited from mother to daughter and son, and from father to daughter, but not from father to son.
Likewise, mtDNA is inherited maternally and can be matched with the maternal line.
In one of the better-known cases from the airplane crash, the identification of former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani was carried out using the Y-STR from his nephew on the patrilineal branch. Earlier, his sister and son had provided the samples for the match.
Experts said that ensure the quality of DNA samples, they relied primarily on teeth. Their second choice was bones such as the mandible (jaw) and clavicle (collarbone) that sustained severe temperatures. Several of the samples were in highly deteriorated condition, the team managed to match all samples, according to the experts.