Is that even possible? I suspect it would be quite a challenge.
AIUI, poop consists largely of:
broken and discarded red blood cells
dead intestinal bacteria
undigested remnants of food.
The red blood cells don’t contain DNA, so can’t be matched. Am I correct on that? And there’s no point in analyzing the bacteria and cellulose.
I suppose the intestine might shed some cells occasionally, which could provide DNA to match, but how difficult is it to isolate them in a pile of poop?
So random DNA found in samples of dog feces are matched to public and private databases so that those people can be found and then any dogs in their possession are tested to match the illegally abandoned feces?
I’ve read where condos/apartment buildings that have dog poop problems will make every dog owner submit a sample from their dog so they can ID the culprit.
The intestine sheds epithelial cells from its lining. So much so that it is the cell line with the highest rate of reproduction in the body, renewing the lining about once a week. (And why you get severe gastrointestinal problems with radiation sickness, as the cell is vulnerable to radiation damage when the DNA strands are unraveled for duplication.) There will be a lot of useful DNA to be recovered.
This is a science news review from 20 years ago
“The first evidence of human tissue in prehistoric human waste dating back about 850 years shows that people of southwestern Colorado engaged in cannibalism during a long drought, according to a new study”
and a recent article: " The what, how and why of archaeological coprolite analysis"
Just when you think you’ve asked a completely silly question…
Still. Okay, they can ID that the meat was human flesh. But is the dna in that meat still in good enough shape to be able to match it college student who disappeared hitchhiking a couple days ago?
