Origin of DNA in human serum and usefulness of serum as a material for DNA typing.
The aims of this study were to clarify the origin of DNA in human serum and to investigate whether serum is a material available for DNA typing in routine forensic practice. Blood was donated from 10 healthy adult volunteers and stored for up to 8 days, at 4 degrees C and at room temperature. The serum DNA concentration at zero time was in the range of 5.6 to 21.8 ng/ml with a mean of 12.2+/-1.6 ng/ml. The concentrations increased with storage time. On agarose gel electrophoresis, all serum samples showed ladder patterns and the size of each band was an integer multiple of approximately 180 bp considered to be characteristic of apoptosis. DNA typing from DNA released by apoptosis was possible. Exact DNA typing of D1S80, HLA DQA1, PM, CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01 and vWA was possible for each sample. These results indicate that serum contains fragmented DNA derived from apoptosis of leukocytes, especially neutrophils, and that fragmented DNA is an appropriate material for DNA typing.
Takayama
T
T
Department of Legal Medicine, Gifu University School of Medicine, Japan. tomohirot@mac.com
Yamada
S
S
Watanabe
Y
Y
Hirata
K
K
Nagai
A
A
Nakamura
I
I
Bunai
Y
Y
Ohya
I
I