GENERATION AND DETECTION OF UNIQUE DNA TAGGANT SEQUENCES FOR LABELING AND TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES

GENERATION AND DETECTION OF UNIQUE DNA TAGGANT SEQUENCES FOR LABELING AND TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES

By Megan Tierney Harris

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Paul Millard

An Lay Abstract of the Thesis Presented
 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
 Degree of Master of Science
(in Microbiology)
May, 2013

Keywords: Taggant, Geobacillusthermoglucosidasius, DNA Amplification, Microdevice, Explosive

There is a critical and expanding need for effective monitoring of commercial explosives that might potentially fall into the hands of those with malicious intent.  An additive, or taggant, combined with explosives could provide key information about the origin of contraband explosive materials and might deter or limit the theft and abuse of explosive materials.   The focus of this thesis project was to generate a new type of taggant and to fabricate a component of a field-portable device to detect and identify these taggants.   

Similar to the coded numbers sequence of a bar code, this new taggant uses bioengineered bacterial DNA to encode key information about a particular lot of explosives. In order to prove the feasibility of this approach, a specific DNA sequence was generated and cloned into the bacterium, Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius.  This bacterium forms highly resistant spores that could potentially withstand conditions encountered before, during and after explosive detonation.

A device that would be simple and inexpensive to manufacture was created to identify the DNA sequence introduced into the taggant bacteria.  This device contained individual reaction chambers to carry out individual reactions for amplification of only the taggant DNA sequence.  When a chosen taggant sequence was encountered, it was amplified by a real-time polymerase chain reaction and a fluorescence signal was generated.  Ultimately, the operator of the device could use this signal to identify the specific taggant and, in turn, to pinpoint the source of the explosive.