Specific m(i)RNA profiling from DNA eluates for body fluid identification

Abstract

DNA analysis can yield information usable to identify individuals or to associate suspects, victims, and crime scene to one another but does not support a contextualization of trace material. Knowing the composition of biological material from a crime scene, e.g. whether a stain contains saliva or semen, is complementary to DNA-based identification and can be essential in reconstructing the course of events in criminal investigations. Research in the forensic applications of RNA analysis has surged considerably during the last two decades and provided recent advancements for forensic casework.Therefore, as a proof of concept, different commercially available DNA extraction kits were compared to assess their potential to simultaneously co-isolate messengerRNA and microRNA in DNA eluates of forensically relevant materials.The results showed that only one extraction kit elutes enough RNA molecules to perform messengerRNA body fluid identification whereas for microRNA-specific expression two of the tested kits yielded sufficient RNA concentrations.