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- Title
Microbial population analysis improves the evidential value of faecal traces in forensic investigations.
- Authors
Quaak, Frederike; Graaf, Mei-Lan; Weterings, Rob; Kuiper, Irene
- Abstract
The forensic science community has a growing interest in microbial population analysis, especially the microbial populations found inside and on the human body. Both their high abundance, microbes outnumber human cells by a factor 10, and their diversity, different sites of the human body harbour different microbial communities, make them an interesting tool for forensics. Faecal material is a type of trace evidence which can be found in a variety of criminal cases, but is often being ignored in forensic investigations. Deriving a human short tandem repeat (STR) profile from a faecal sample can be challenging. However, the microbial communities within faecal material can be of additional criminalistic value in linking a faecal trace to the possible donor. We present a microarray technique in which the faecal microbial community is used to differentiate between faecal samples and developed a decision model to predict the possible common origin of questioned samples. The results show that this technique may be a useful additional tool when no or only partial human STR profiles can be generated.
- Subjects
FORENSIC sciences; CRIMINAL investigation; MICROBIAL population genetics; FORENSIC accounting; DNA microarrays
- Publication
International Journal of Legal Medicine, 2017, Vol 131, Issue 1, p45
- ISSN
0937-9827
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00414-016-1390-8