Practice question

Parentage testing by Southern blotting of short tandem repeats relies on principle that offspring must inherit one allele from each parent. True biological offspring display bands matching maternal and paternal alleles, with at least one band shared with each parent. Offspring lacking paternal specific bands or showing novel bands inconsistent with Mendelian inheritance are excluded. In this blot, several progeny exhibit complementary banding patterns containing maternal and paternal specific fragments, confirming parentage, while mismatched profiles indicate exclusion or mutation, essential for pedigree verification.