Do teeth dentine contain DNA??

[cracked_doc]

sorry if it sounds a bit stupid.... but all the cells in a living organism contain DNA...does that include teeth?? i mean teeth are made of calcium so why would they contain DNA?? I am talking about the dentine alone...furthermore how can we tell tht which parts of the body cells have DNA...does nails and hair hv DNA??[/b]

[MrMistery]

if a part of the body has cells that are alive, it has DNA(exception-red blood cells)
Nails don't cause the cells are dead.

[sdekivit]

if a part of the body has cells that are alive, it has DNA(exception-red blood cells)
Nails don't cause the cells are dead.

in other words: you need cells with a nucleus.

[cracked_doc]

oh i got it....so an indicator would be tht if that part is alive than we can feel it....like gums , hair follicles etc....but the dead cells cannot be felt..like strands of hair Or the dentine....k...thanks for the help

[kiekyon]

well, since teeth, skin and nail are all derived from living cells in the first place, wouldnt there be any small amount of DNA left there??
i know that it is possible to extract DNA from a single hair

[MrMistery]

it is possible to extract DNA from a hair because the hair folicle contains living cells.
If you don't feel something, it doesn't necessarily mean it is not alive. It just means there are no functional receptors there. Think about a white blood cell: it's alive and has DNA, but can you feel it dying?

[cracked_doc]

so we can say that in a living organism all cells do not contain D.N.A only those cells which have a nucleus and which are alive have D.N.A....there is no such generalized statement that all cells in a living organism contain D.N.A...dead cells do not contain dna like dead WBC's , dead epidermal cells etc.

[pyrophoenix]

No.. eveb the outer skin cells, hair cells and nail cells and yes even the dentine cells have DNA! How do u explain the possibility of developing somatic cells from hair follicle then? How is it possible to recreate a persons genetic code from his hair follicle?
Its because the DNA of the person is embedded in every part of his body!

[MrMistery]

the hair folicle contains living cells. those cells actually divide quite rapidly- a reason why hair grows..

Now, a dead epidermal cell might contain leftover DNA, but odds are that it is ruptured, denaturated, and basically busted up.. It does not serve it's role of information storage any more

[kiekyon]

the dentine may not contain any dna, but chances are you can always get the saliva,
we dont actually need a lot of dna, as pcr can make lots of copies for u to analyze