OREANDA-NEWS  A cat's fur can retain enough DNA to allow the furry felines to provide much-needed evidence for solving a crime, a study revealed.So-called touch DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid - the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms) can be used by investigators of a criminal act to either rule out certain people as suspects or direct them towards unexpected likely perpetrators. Also called Trace DNA, it is obtained from shed skin cells and other biological material transferred from a donor to an object or a person during physical contact.

Heidi Monkman, together with Dr. Mariya Goray, from the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders, collected human DNA from 20 pet cats from multiple households. The study, carried out in collaboration with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department, found detectable levels of DNA in 80 percent of the samples. According to the team, in 70 percent of the cats tested so-called “interpretable profiles” were discovered that could be linked to a “person of interest” in a crime.It is hoped that further research on the transfer of human DNA to animals, such as the collaborative work on cats and dogs currently underway at the Flinders University forensic laboratory, could offer new insights into interpreting forensic DNA results obtained from a crime scene that includes pets.