DNA testing and skin color

Antony Barnett:

The Observer put one of the new kits to the test. We gave samples of DNA from the saliva of four people from a variety of backgrounds to the British firm DNA BioScience, which is launching a new range of tests in the UK in collaboration with the American firm DNA Print Genomics. The US firm was recently hired by the Metropolitan Police to build a racial profile of a serial rapist using DNA specimens left at the scene of his crimes.

The firms claim the test can work out the percentage of someone's genes which are from four distinct ethnic groups: African, 'European', American Indian and east Asian. A second analysis breaks down the European element into a further four groups, northern and south-eastern European; Middle Eastern and south Asian.

DNA BioScience had no prior knowledge of the background of the subjects it was testing, who are all Observer journalists. Its results are shown on this page.

Two results were particularly surprising: Anushka Asthana discovered that although her immediate roots are Indian, her DNA is at least 12 per cent white northern European; Rebecca Seal, whose background is English, found that 10 per cent of her DNA is from a Native American, or similar, gene pool and 16 per cent Middle Eastern.

The firm's geneticist, Dr Andrei Semikhodskii, pointed out that the tests have a margin of error of around 8 per cent. But they did accurately pinpoint the skin colour of the four people who gave samples. Akin Ojumu's DNA came back as 100 per cent sub-Saharan African, which the company correctly concluded meant the subject was black-skinned, and Seal's dominant European DNA suggested a white skin.

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