Miklós Kásler - Zoltán Szentirmay (szerk.): Identifying the Árpád Dynasty Skeletons Interred in the Matthias Church. Applying data from historical, archaeological, anthropological, radiological, morphological, radiocarbon dating and genetic research (Budapest, 2021)
CHAPTER SEVEN – Genetic investigations
It was possible to isolate DNA from every bone sample investigated, but optimization of the DNA isolation protocol was necessary for this. This was especially important in the case of Béla III, since these bones were treated with some sort of resin, and this treatment may have caused the severe fragmentation of the DNA isolated from the bone samples (and may have also affected the radiocarbon dating). Optimizing the DNA isolation was conducted on Béla Ill ’s tarsus, and four special DNA isolating kits were tried in six combinations. The fourth, fifth and sixth variations proved to be appropriate, and these were used to isolate DNA from Béla Ill ’s tarsus, as well as from various bones of other skeletons (Figure 31, Fehren-Schmitz et al. 2015). Figure 31. Sixth DNA extraction iteration from Béla Ill ’s metatarsal sample with the use ofQiaVAc MinElute Organic kit, Aglient fluorescent gel electrophoresis figure. The fragment lengths are displayed in the denominator in basepair (bp) units. (Fehren-Schmitz et al. 2015). 129
