Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences

The objective of forensic sciences is to find clues in a crime scene in order to reconstruct the scenario. Classical samples include DNA or fingerprints, but both have inherent limitations and can be uninformative. Another type of sample has emerged recently in the form of the microbiome. Supported...

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Autores principales: Gouello, Audrey, Dunyach-Remy, Catherine, Siatka, Christian, Lavigne, Jean-Philippe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8774847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35054168
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12010001
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author Gouello, Audrey
Dunyach-Remy, Catherine
Siatka, Christian
Lavigne, Jean-Philippe
author_facet Gouello, Audrey
Dunyach-Remy, Catherine
Siatka, Christian
Lavigne, Jean-Philippe
author_sort Gouello, Audrey
collection PubMed
description The objective of forensic sciences is to find clues in a crime scene in order to reconstruct the scenario. Classical samples include DNA or fingerprints, but both have inherent limitations and can be uninformative. Another type of sample has emerged recently in the form of the microbiome. Supported by the Human Microbiome Project, the characteristics of the microbial communities provide real potential in forensics. They are highly specific and can be used to differentiate and classify the originating body site of a human biological trace. Skin microbiota is also highly specific and different between individuals, leading to its possibility as an identification tool. By extension, the possibilities of the microbial communities to be deposited on everyday objects has also been explored. Other uses include the determination of the post-mortem interval or the analysis of soil communities. One challenge is that the microbiome changes over time and can be influenced by many environmental and lifestyle factors. This review offers an overview of the main methods and applications to demonstrate the benefit of the microbiome to provide forensically relevant information.
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spelling pubmed-87748472022-01-21 Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences Gouello, Audrey Dunyach-Remy, Catherine Siatka, Christian Lavigne, Jean-Philippe Diagnostics (Basel) Review The objective of forensic sciences is to find clues in a crime scene in order to reconstruct the scenario. Classical samples include DNA or fingerprints, but both have inherent limitations and can be uninformative. Another type of sample has emerged recently in the form of the microbiome. Supported by the Human Microbiome Project, the characteristics of the microbial communities provide real potential in forensics. They are highly specific and can be used to differentiate and classify the originating body site of a human biological trace. Skin microbiota is also highly specific and different between individuals, leading to its possibility as an identification tool. By extension, the possibilities of the microbial communities to be deposited on everyday objects has also been explored. Other uses include the determination of the post-mortem interval or the analysis of soil communities. One challenge is that the microbiome changes over time and can be influenced by many environmental and lifestyle factors. This review offers an overview of the main methods and applications to demonstrate the benefit of the microbiome to provide forensically relevant information. MDPI 2021-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8774847/ /pubmed/35054168 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12010001 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Gouello, Audrey
Dunyach-Remy, Catherine
Siatka, Christian
Lavigne, Jean-Philippe
Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title_full Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title_fullStr Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title_short Analysis of Microbial Communities: An Emerging Tool in Forensic Sciences
title_sort analysis of microbial communities: an emerging tool in forensic sciences
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8774847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35054168
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12010001
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