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Paternity Testing


A paternity test is established to determine the biological father of a child like wise a maternity test is to prove the birth mother of a child. For obvious reasons paternity tests are much more common than maternity tests.

In a DNA paternity test, DNA samples from two possible fathers and the mother are compared with the offspring's DNA. In this procedure, the samples are digested with a type of enzyme that cuts DNA at specific sequences. The digested DNA is loaded onto a gel and separated according to size, by gel electrophoresis.

Every band of the offspring's DNA must match a band in at least one of its parents'. Let's first consider the offspring matches with the mother. Three bands match the mother. The three remaining bands must be shared with the father. Only one of the possible fathers will share the three bands with the offspring. Therefore, this must be the biological father.

Genetic testing has a 99.999% accuracy rate, or 99,999 out of 100,000 and has all but taken over the other forms of testing. Although there are several other, although often deemed less reliable parental tests. You could use several congenital traits sich as a cleft chin, a widows peak, or attached earlobes. Blood types can be used to disprove paternity in some cases. When the possible parents blood types are obtained this information can be used to show the possible blood types for the child, and because only certain blood type combinations are possible a mismatch may prove that the alleged mother or father of the child could not be the parent.




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