The African Elephants were fingerprinted by DNA profling each region of DNA separately, and processing 9 regions of DNA, means 9 separate DNA reactions per animal. Our plan is to ‘multiplex’ these regions, so that we can profile 3 or regions of DNA in a single reaction. In a way that has been done with humans to allow DNA labs to more easiliy, quickly and less expensively profile people.
The multiplexing will be achieved by using largely trial and error. By mixing the raw profiling material together and trying various conditions, stabilizers and techniques. Additionally we will likely redesign the DNA primers (which are the DNA ‘keys’ designed to revel to use the DNA profile in each region). The redesign will allow the reactions to work in together in a single reaction tube.
A sample of dung is purified and DNA isolated. Then our DNA profiling system will be implimented upon each sample and a profile will be obtained. By looking at the number of unique profiles from the samples, and using statistical calcuations we plan to be able to find the population of Cambodian Elephants left in the wild.
