title: Microbial population analysis improves the evidential value of faecal traces in forensic investigations.
abstract: The forensic science community has a growing interest in microbial population analysis, especially the microbial populations found inside and on the human body. Both their high abundance, microbes outnumber human cells by a factor 10, and their diversity, different sites of the human body harbour different microbial communities, make them an interesting tool for forensics. Faecal material is a type of trace evidence which can be found in a variety of criminal cases, but is often being ignored in forensic investigations. Deriving a human short tandem repeat (STR) profile from a faecal sample can be challenging. However, the microbial communities within faecal material can be of additional criminalistic value in linking a faecal trace to the possible donor. We present a microarray technique in which the faecal microbial community is used to differentiate between faecal samples and developed a decision model to predict the possible common origin of questioned samples. The results show that this technique may be a useful additional tool when no or only partial human STR profiles can be generated.
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Forensic Institute, P.O. Box 24044, 2490 AA, The Hague, The Netherlands. f.quaak@nfi.minvenj.nl.
authors.forename: Frederike C A
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Quaak
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Forensic Institute, P.O. Box 24044, 2490 AA, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mei-Lan M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: de Graaf
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Forensic Institute, P.O. Box 24044, 2490 AA, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weterings
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Forensic Institute, P.O. Box 24044, 2490 AA, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kuiper
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D018834:Chaperonin 60 / Q000235:genetics*; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D053803:Forensic Genetics / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D046228:Microarray Analysis; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015347:RNA Probes; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D018834:Chaperonin 60; D015347:RNA Probes; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012337:RNA, Ribosomal, 18S
keywords: Faeces; Forensics; Microarray; Microbial community profiling