title: Trace samples of human blood in mosquitoes as a forensic investigation tool.
abstract: Investigations of any type of crime invariably starts at the crime scene by collecting evidence. Thus, the purpose of this research was to collect and analyze an entomological trace from an environment that is similar to those of indoor crime scenes. Hematophagous mosquitoes were collected from two residential units; saliva of volunteers that were residents in the units was also collected for genetic analysis as reference samples. We examined the allele frequencies of 15 short tandem repeat loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818, and FGA) and amelogenin. A total of 26 female hematophagous mosquitoes were identified as Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus; we were able to obtain 11 forensically valid genetic profiles, with a minimum of 0.028203 ng/μL of human DNA. Thus, the results of this study showed that it was possible to correlate human genetic information from mosquitoes with the volunteer reference samples, which validates the use of this information as forensic evidence. Furthermore, we observed mixed genetic profiles from one mosquito. Therefore, it is clearly important to collect these insects indoors where crimes were committed, because it may be possible to find intact genetic profiles of suspects in the blood found in the digestive tract of hematophagous mosquitoes for later comparison to identify an offender and/or exclude suspects.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Imunopatologia Keizo Asami, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil kaynaracecilia@yahoo.com.br.
authors.forename: K C N
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Rabêlo
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: C M R
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Albuquerque
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Endemias, Laboratório Central de Saúde Pública de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: V B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Tavares
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Perícia e Pesquisa em Genética Forense, Secretaria de Defesa Social de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Perícia e Pesquisa em Genética Forense, Secretaria de Defesa Social de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Souza
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Imunopatologia Keizo Asami, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Imunopatologia Keizo Asami, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: N C L
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Imunopatologia Keizo Asami, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Crovella
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003415:Crime; D009033:Culicidae / Q000235:genetics*; D004247:DNA / Q000097:blood*; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D005260:Female; D053803:Forensic Genetics; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005820:Genetic Testing; D006801:Humans; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA