Genetic fingerprinting

The genetic fingerprint (or genetic profile) is the result of a genetic analysis, which makes each human being genetically unique.

Principle of the genetic fingerprint

Although there is very close homology between the DNA of all human beings, hypervariable regions can be used to distinguish two genetic profiles. These are tandem repeated sequences which vary in their number of repetitions between people.

An analysis of the number of repetitions of several different chromosomal regions can be used to determine absolutely that two genetic profiles are identical (the risk of error is 1 in 100 billion).

The process is automated and computerised files can be used to easily compare two people or to search for a person with the same genetic profile in the files.