Environmental factors influencing disputed paternity using DNA-based methods

Abstract EN

The paternity of a child may be disputed either when the child is born in wedlock and the husband denies paternity or when the child is born out of wedlock and the man named as the father denies paternity.

There is great variation across cultures in beliefs about paternity, but cross-culturally, paternity confidence is positively associated with men's involvement with children and with investment or inheritance from paternal kin.

The study aims to focus on the role of DNA as powerful technology in disputed paternity and to determine the different environmental factors that predisposes to deny children.

DNA typing of 15 short tandem repeat (STR) loci included in the AmpFℓ STR Identifiler ^TM PCR amplification kit (Applied Biosystems), was carried out on paternity cases arriving to Egyptian Forensic Medicine Authority (EFMA) - Medical laboratory with the use of questionnaire, this study was done during the period of one year, 48 cases fulfilled the criteria of this study with total 153 individuals.

Results showed that 23 of studied cases were inclusion cases (the alleged fathers “AF” are the true fathers), 23 of studied cases were exclusion cases (the AF are not the true fathers) while the remaining two cases showed inclusion and exclusion within the same case.

The use of DNA in disputed paternity cases has a powerful role in determining inclusion/ exclusion.

Also, results of this study showed the effect of disputed paternity cases on the children subjected to such situation.