miRNAs: Perspective towards the use for body fluid identification

Abstract

Identification of body fluids provides an important lead for crime investigation by which it can give a clue about the nature of the case and assist crime reconstruction. In the last decade, miRNAs have emerged as promising markers for body fluid identification due to their cell- /tissue-specificities. miRNAs are a class of small noncoding RNAs with ~ 22 nucleotides in length and their small sizes enable them to be resistant to degradation. The possibility to adopt miRNA markers for body fluid identification has been studied in various forensically relevant body fluids. This review aims to give a comprehensive summary of proposed miRNA markers for identifying five body fluids (venous blood, menstrual blood, semen, vaginal secretion and saliva). Based on numerous evaluations of miRNA markers and the development of model analysis using a single panel of miRNAs to identify unknown samples, proposed panels and analysis strategies were gathered and discussed.

Keywords

• mirna, forensically relevant body fluids, body fluid identification, crime, forensic casework