DNA profiling after fingermark development: Evaluation of silver mirror chemical delamination technique

The combination of fingermark and genetic forensic methods for human identification has been investigated to maximize the information obtained from the same fingermark sample. This study assessed the feasibility of generating DNA profiles using the recently developed silver mirror chemical delamination technique, specifically created to detect and enhance fingermarks deposited on mirror surfaces. The novel method avoids direct manipulation of the fingermark; thus, the preservation of the trace suggests good potential for subsequent DNA profiling. Half of the fingermarks developed with the mirror delamination method generated profiles containing at least 8 of 20 STR markers from the extended CODIS set and were considered useful for human identification. In addition, the results revealed that genetic tests provided useful information in two of the three samples that were initially not viable for dactyloscopy comparison, reinforcing the idea that conservative fingermark techniques can be combined with the genetic approach to increase the likelihood of obtaining useful information for identification purposes. Therefore, this research indicates that the silver mirror chemical delamination is a fingermark enhancement technique that also enables subsequent genetic evaluation.