title: Post mortem DNA degradation of human tissue experimentally mummified in salt.
abstract: Mummified human tissues are of great interest in forensics and biomolecular archaeology. The aim of this study was to analyse post mortem DNA alterations in soft tissues in order to improve our knowledge of the patterns of DNA degradation that occur during salt mummification. In this study, the lower limb of a female human donor was amputated within 24 h post mortem and mummified using a process designed to simulate the salt dehydration phase of natural or artificial mummification. Skin and skeletal muscle were sampled at multiple time points over a period of 322 days and subjected to genetic analysis. Patterns of genomic fragmentation, miscoding lesions, and overall DNA degradation in both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA was assessed by different methods: gel electrophoresis, multiplex comparative autosomal STR length amplification, cloning and sequence analysis, and PCR amplification of different fragment sizes using a damage sensitive recombinant polymerase. The study outcome reveals a very good level of DNA preservation in salt mummified tissues over the course of the experiment, with an overall slower rate of DNA fragmentation in skin compared to muscle.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Natallia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shved
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Genetics, Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Cordula
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Papageorgopoulou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Guelfirde
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Akguel
authors.affiliation: Division of Cell- and Neurobiology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Paulsen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Abigail
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bouwman
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Warinner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rühli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D053938:DNA Fragmentation; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009106:Mummies; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012867:Skin; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000737:chemistry; D014021:Tissue Preservation
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D012965:Sodium Chloride