title: A rapid nuclear staining test using cationic dyes contributes to efficient STR analysis of telogen hair roots.
abstract: Telogen hairs presented in the crime scene are commonly encountered as trace evidence. However, short tandem repeat (STR) profiling of the hairs currently have low and limited use due to poor success rate. To increase the success rate of STR profiling of telogen hairs, we developed a rapid and cost-effective method to estimate the number of nuclei in the hair roots. Five cationic dyes, Methyl green (MG), Harris hematoxylin (HH), Methylene blue (MB), Toluidine blue (TB), and Safranin O (SO) were evaluated in this study. We conducted a screening test based on microscopy and the percentage of loss with nuclear DNA, in order to select the best dye. MG was selected based on its specific nuclei staining and low adverse effect on the hair-associated nuclear DNA. We examined 330 scalp and 100 pubic telogen hairs with MG. Stained hairs were classified into five groups and analyzed by STR. The fast staining method revealed 70% (head hair) and 33.4% (pubic hair) of full (30 alleles) and high partial (18-29 alleles) STR profiling proportion from the lowest nuclei count group (one to ten nuclei). The results of this study demonstrated a rapid, specific, nondestructive, and high yield DNA profiling method applicable for screening telogen hairs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: So-Yeon
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Laboratory Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun-Ju
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Ha
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Seung-Kyun
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Laboratory Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: So-Min
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Laboratory Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kyung-Hee
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.|Department of Biomedical Laboratory Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Yong-Bin
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1569-7248
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Eom
mesh_terms: D002412:Cations; D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000379:methods*; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008739:Methyl Green / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D002412:Cations; D004396:Coloring Agents; D008739:Methyl Green
keywords: Cationic dye; Methyl green; Pubic hair; STR analysis; Telogen hair