Tarisai P. Velempini has recently completed her PhD at the University of Johannesburg. She has authored 2 journal articles, and has 2 more articles under review. She is currently working as a research assistant.
Abstract
Human blood is composed of different components which are platelets, plasma, red blood cells and white blood cells. Moreover, all human beings have these similar blood matrices and composition. Each individual has the same percentage composition of these components. However, each individual’s blood is differentiated through deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Blood detections and their interactions with detections materials such luminol, Crinum Macowanii plant bulb (medium-polar and water) extracts and standard chemicals (tryptamine and rutin), are reviewed. Upon detecting blood using these materials, it is also vitally important to look into the blood matrix after use to ensure that DNA integrity is still intact. The process of
determining DNA integrity was adopted from simple basic procedures of DNA extraction treated with specific solvents and thus purifying the DNA isolated from human blood. So far there are numerous methods to determine DNA integrity with comet assay being amongst these1. An overview of comet assay involves the DNA damage by any destructor (temperature, instruments or chemicals), embedded on a specialized coated slide and lysed. The results expected from these tests are viewed as fluorescenting spots representing DNA integrity. Spots observed either show a whole dot or a dot with a tail to it, which are interpreted as dot representing intact DNA and the tail representing damaged DNA
