title: [Progress on epigenetics applications in forensic science].
abstract: Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. Such changes include DNA methylation, histone modification, chromatin remodeling, genomic imprinting, X chromosome inactivation and non-coding RNA regulation. Recent progresses on epigenetics open new possibilities in tackling these challenging problems in forensic science, including identification of fetal paternity testing in embryonic period, determination of the necessary allele in paternity testing, discrimination of identical twins, origination analysis of micro tissue, verification of forged DNA. This review focuses on epigenetics concept and its latest application in the field of paternity testing, age estimation, discrimination between the twins, identification of tissue of origin, and estimation of postmortem interval.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China. yangyr@big.ac.cn
authors.forename: Ya-ran
authors.initials: YR
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Peng-xiang
authors.initials: PX
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiang-dong
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Jiang-wei
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D019175:DNA Methylation; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D057890:Epigenomics; D044707:Forensic Sciences; D015870:Gene Expression; D018392:Genomic Imprinting; D006801:Humans; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic