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Identification and quantitation of source from hemoglobin of blood and blood mixtures by high performance liquid
E O Espinoza1, M A Kirms, M S Filipek
1National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, Ashland, OR, USA. edespinoza@mail.fws.gov
Abstract:
The described technique offers a sensitive and reproducible method for inferring the source of over 50 different animal species from bloodstains and blood mixtures. Hemoglobins from each of the species were examined using reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in chromatographic times of less than 25 mins. The HPLC method complements and furthers current methodology for identification of species of origin. HPLC analysis is particularly well suited for the quantitative analysis of blood and blood mixtures and is applicable to species for which antisera are unavailable. The sensitivity of the method (hemoglobin amounts down to 1.2 micrograms) lends itself to the analysis of blood mixtures in which only a small percentage of the mixture represents blood from a given species. Such resolution and quantitation is applicable to wildlife forensic casework.