Microbiome Forensic Biobanking: A Step toward Microbial Profiling for Forensic Human Identification.

Luciana Caenazzo,Pamela Tozzo

doi:10.3390/healthcare9101371

Abstract

In recent years many studies have highlighted the great potential of microbial analysis in human identification for forensic purposes, with important differences in microbial community composition and function across different people and locations, showing a certain degree of uncertainty. Therefore, further studies are necessary to enable forensic scientists to evaluate the risk of microbial transfer and recovery from various items and to further critically evaluate the suitability of current human DNA recovery protocols for human microbial profiling for identification purposes. While the establishment and development of microbiome research biobanks for clinical applications is already very structured, the development of studies on the applicability of microbiome biobanks for forensic purposes is still in its infancy. The creation of large population microbiome biobanks, specifically dedicated to forensic human identification, could be worthwhile. This could also be useful to increase the practical applications of forensic microbiology for identification purposes, given that this type of evidence is currently absent from most real casework investigations and judicial proceedings in courts.

Highlights

Healthcare 2021, 9, 1371. https://A biobank is a facility that stores biological material, i.e., tissues and liquids of a living organism—human, animal, plant or microorganism, and collected data, through activities ranging from collection to distribution.Research biobanks are collections of biological material linked with donor data, in particular with clinical and epidemiological data, which can be used for a variety of research projects
There are two approaches that are most frequently used in human microbiome research: amplicon sequencing, which relies on sequencing of taxonomic marker genes (usually 16S ribosomal RNA genes) for bacteria and archaea and metagenomic shotgun sequencing, which simultaneously captures all genetic material, providing sequence information on a randomly picked set of DNA fragments extracted from the sample [25]
It is necessary that the institution of biobanks of samples and data contains reference databases categorized by, for example, type of sample, individual age, race, habits, and ethnicity in order to detect the possibility of determining a “core microbiome” among human subjects

Summary

Introduction

A biobank is a facility that stores biological material, i.e., tissues and liquids of a living organism—human, animal, plant or microorganism, and collected data, through activities ranging from collection to distribution. The priority objective of personalized medicine is to produce more effective and better adapted therapies for the patient by linking a huge amount of genomic data with individual health data (diseases, therapies, etc.) and other personal data (e.g., on lifestyle, eating habits, physical activity, income, etc.) [2] This evolution, made possible by developments in genetic analysis and bioinformatics, has for some years been considered a revolution in medicine [3,4]. The overall benefit cannot be determined in concrete terms, but only described in a very abstract way by defining the research areas or typology of research projects on which a biobank is focused This means that potential donors should be informed about the type of research project supported (purpose of the biobank) and about the project selection process, so that they can evaluate the potential usefulness of a donation [14]

The Challenge of Human Microbiome Research

The Human Microbiome for Forensic Identification Purposes

Identity and Forensic Identification

Human Microbiome Biobanking for Forensic Research in Human Identification

Conclusions