DNA-based Identification of Forensically Important Blow Fly Species in Korea; Aldrichina grahami, Calliphora lata, Calliphora vicina and Phormia regina / 대한법의학회지

ABSTRACT

Entomological evidence, especially necrophagous flies, are important in estimating postmortem interval in a putrefied corpse. Accurate and rapid species identification of eggs, maggots and pupae is required because growth rates and ecological characteristics are different among different species. But species identification of these immature stages of insects is difficult or impossible to even an expert entomologist. We tried to identify the necrophagous fly species using molecular data. Adult specimens of four forensically important blow fly species [Aldrichina grahami, Calliphora lata, Calliphora vicina and Phormia regina] were used for DNA extraction and sequences analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (CO1) in this study. A total of 560 base pairs(bp) of the CO1 region was recovered using the newly designed specific primer pairs and was sequenced to compare it with those of same fly species registered in NCBI GenBank. The results presented in Table 2 to 6 demonstrate not only the potential utility of the COI sequence in interspecific discrimination, but also indicate that this sequence is probably not suitable for use with intraspecific studies, especially for dividing different local populations within the same species.