Chapter 11, Problem 20P

On July 17, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II; his wife the Tsarina Alix; their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia; their son, the Tsarevitch (Crown Prince) Alexei; and four loyal retainers were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries. The bodies were not recovered for many years, fueling legends that Grand Duchess Anastasia had escaped, and allowing a woman named Anna Anderson to claim that she was Anastasia. In 1991 and in 2007, two mass graves with a total of nine skeletal remains were unearthed at Ekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural Mountains. The table that follows presents partial DNA fingerprint analysis (using only five SSR loci and the sex chromosome marker Amel) of these skeletons. Entries separated by commas indicate alleles (number of repeating units).

a.	What is the most likely identification for each skeleton? (Note: You cannot differentiate among any of the daughters based on this information alone.)
b.	Three PCR reactions failed to yield PCR products. If the reactions had worked properly, what alleles would you expect to see in each case?
c.	Are any of the daughters identical twins?
d.	What kind of evidence could you obtain from the skeletons to differentiate among the daughters?
e.	How do these DNA fingerprints repudiate the claims of Anna Anderson? The DNA fingerprint data in the table are certainly consistent with the idea that some of these skeletons were members of the Tsar’s family, but they do not prove the hypothesis. To investigate further, forensic scientists obtained blood samples from Prince Philip (the consort of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain) and compared his DNA fingerprint to those obtained from the skeletal remains in Russia. A family genealogy is provided here. The results validated that the Tsar’s family was indeed interred in these graves.
f.	For autosomal DNA markers, what percentage of alleles in the Tsarina’s skeleton should match with alleles in Prince Philip’s genome?
g.	For autosomal DNA markers, what percentage o f alleles in the Tsarevitch’s skeleton should match with alleles in Prince Philip’s genome?
h.	A question for genealogy aficionados: What is Prince Philip’s relationship with the Tsarina?