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[Sex identification from DNA in old teeth].
Masatugu Yoshida1, Manabu Suno, Masaru Asari
1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Asahikawa Medical College, Asahikawa 078-8510, Japan.
[Hokkaido Igaku Zasshi] the Hokkaido Journal of Medical Science
|April 20, 2005
Summary
DNA testing can determine sex from fresh teeth using various markers. For older, degraded samples, multiple DNA markers are crucial for accurate sex determination, especially in forensic investigations.
Area of Science:
- Forensic science
- Molecular biology
- Genetics
Context:
- Accurate sex determination is vital in forensic anthropology and archaeology.
- Tooth DNA analysis offers a potential method for sex identification from skeletal remains.
- Aging and environmental factors significantly impact DNA preservation and extraction yields.
Purpose:
- To evaluate the efficacy of different polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based DNA markers for sex determination from fresh and aged human teeth.
- To compare the success rates of multi-locus and single-locus markers in DNA-based sex identification.
- To assess the reliability of molecular sex determination against morphological analysis in challenging forensic cases.
Summary:
- DNA was extracted from 80 fresh and 15 old teeth for sex determination using PCR.
- Fresh teeth yielded successful sex determination with multi-locus markers (DYZ-1, DYZ-3, DXZ-1) and single-locus markers (amelogenin) with fluorescent probes.
- Older samples showed lower DNA content, with multi-locus markers being more successful than single-locus markers, and molecular results showed low concordance with morphological sexing.
Impact:
- Establishes that fresh teeth are reliable sources for molecular sex determination.
- Highlights the challenges of DNA degradation in aged and environmentally compromised samples.
- Recommends using multiple molecular markers for accurate sex determination in forensic contexts, especially with degraded DNA.