Phys.org April 3, 2023
Dust is an attractive evidence source, as it accumulates on undisturbed surfaces, often is overlooked by perpetrators, and contains sufficient human DNA for analysis. To assess whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped from indoor dust using massively parallel sequencing could be used to detect known household occupants, a team of researchers in the US (North Carolina State University, MIT Lincoln Laboratory) recruited 13 households and provided buccal samples from each occupant and dust from five predefined indoor locations. They used a software developed to permit mixture analysis and identity searching to assess whether known occupants could be detected from associated household dust samples. They estimated the percentage of alleles in each dust sample contributed by known and unknown occupants. According to the researchers their study highlights the potential of analyzing human DNA present in indoor dust to detect known household occupants, which could be valuable for investigative leads… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Effect of indoor dust location/sample… Credit: Journal of Forensic Sciences, 03 April 2023Â