title: Cancerous tissues in forensic genetic analysis.
abstract: Microsatellites or short tandem repeats (STRs) markers are important tools for mapping disease-causing genes by linkage, for performing investigations in forensic medicine, for population genetic studies and for studying genetic modifications in tumors. In forensic applications neoplastic tissues can be used as a source of genetic information for personal identification or paternity testing when no other specimen is available. Cancer tissues can show microsatellite instability (MSI) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) also for the STRs used in the forensic field. In this study, we screened 56 sporadic gastrointestinal carcinomas in order to provide further data for the evaluation of the incidence of allelic alterations for 15 STR loci and the suitability of using cancerous tissues in forensic applications. Sixty-six percent of the cancerous tissues were found to possess allelic alterations of the microsatellites analyzed with a high incidence of MSI-L (microsatellite instability low) when compared to the corresponding normal tissue. The most frequently altered loci were D18S51, VWA, and FGA. From a forensic perspective, great care must be taken in evaluating the DNA typing results obtained from cancerous tissue samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine and Public Health, Section of Legal Medicine, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. susi.pelotti@unibo.it
authors.forename: Susi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pelotti
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ceccardi
authors.forename: Milena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alù
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lugaresi
authors.forename: Rachele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Trane
authors.forename: Mirella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Falconi
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bini
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cicognani
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D053803:Forensic Genetics; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D019656:Loss of Heterozygosity; D053842:Microsatellite Instability; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers