Chapter 15 - Age estimation based on molecular biology approaches

Abstract

Age-at-death estimation using molecular biology approaches is based on different modifications to the DNA during the aging process. Thus telomeres shorten with each cell division, showing a correlation of the decrease of telomere length with age; however, the error between chronological and predictive age is high with respect to classical anthropological techniques. Several studies point out the increase in mtDNA mutations with age, and although the correlation is high, further studies are required to routinely adopt this methodology in a forensic laboratory. Although signal joint T-cell receptor excision circle rearrangements have been shown to decrease with age, the accuracy of this technique is similar to telomere shortening, and additionally it can only be applied to blood samples. The growing field of epigenetics can also be applied to forensic age estimation showing a high correlation between DNA methylation and age. However, further studies are needed to make full use of this methodology in forensic casework.