With the Casey Anthony case verdict, and recent capture of Whitey Bulger in the news, my attention is drawn to the important service forensic scientists do to society – promoting justice. The National Academy of Sciences put out a report in 2009, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.
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The report details the challenges faced in forensic science, and makes recommendations, which aim for universal standards and establishing best practice. The major challenge for forensic scientists analyzing DNA from a crime scene, is getting useful data from limited and poor quality samples.
There are several research avenues where epigenetics can aid forensic science. While genetic information identifies an individual, the epigenetic information can add informative layers to that evidence. Here are some examples.
- Determining tissue or bodily fluid origin of crime scene DNA. Potential forensic application of DNA Methylation profiling to body fluid identification. Int J Legal Med 2011 Lee et al.
- Age identification from DNA methylation markers found in saliva. Epigenetic Predictor of Age. PLoS 2011 Brocklandt et al.
- Discriminating between identical twins. Perspective of DNA methylation in forensic genetics and new progress of its detection methods. Fa Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2009 Zhao & Li. (Chinese article)
- DNA methylation signatures that relate to time of death or cause of death….circadian dysregulation via methamphetamine exposure.
- Identifying artificial DNA introduced to a crime scene. Authentication of forensic DNA samples. Forensic Sci Int Genet 2010 Frumkin et al.
Considering all the ways that epigenetic profiles are specific to tissue, time, age, environmental factors…
How else do you imagine epigenetic analysis could aid forensic science?
This ~3 minute NPR interview of Dr. Tom Andrews, Chief Medical Examiner of New Hampshire by Dr. Greg Davis identifies the challenges faced by forensic science as matters of “life, liberty and death”. How true.
epigentics, specifically the methylation of the DNA sample could potentially yield a lot of information about the individual doner. methylation can probably predict mental characteristics much better than DNA can. and the psych profile of the individual would be very useful in the selection of possible suspects.
why do I suspect this? because there was a study that revealed that mental illness was higher in the subsequent generation as a result of stress (from the holocaust) than it was in the survivers. In addition, DNA identification of mental illness has failed, and many have tried. So I assume epigentics is strongly involved, methylation being one of those epigenetic factors.
Thanks Steven. I never even considered psych profiling. Here’s a brand new paper I just found related to that idea. Epigenetics scientists and psychologists are partnering up,to relate their data, and work on questions in the field of behavioral epigenetics.
Biol Psychol. 2011 Jul;87(3):366-71. Epub 2011 May 7.
Gene environment interactions with a novel variable Monoamine Oxidase A transcriptional enhancer are associated with antisocial personality disorder.
Philibert RA, Wernett P, Plume J, Packer H, Brody GH, Beach SR.
Source
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Neuroscience and Genetics Programs, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
I agree, I was also thinking of the use of epigenetics in determining the diet of different types of fossil organisms to determine their diet and in cases where an individual’s origin/where they come from can be determined by looking at their epigenome as diet will determine DNA methylation, acetylation etc. I think the field of epigenetics is very promising in Forensic identification as a whole.