Gene-based individual identification of hardly recognizable victims in an accident / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To identify hardly recognizable victims of an accident. Methods Tissues of muscle and cartilage were obtained from the dead bodies. Some of the tissues were checked by routine pathological microscopy. Genomic DNA was isolated from the tissues and subjected to STR profiling of 16 sites via multiple fluorescent PCR analysis with ABI’s AmpFLSTR Amplification Kit. Individual identification of the victims was carries out by matching the STR profiles of the victims with those of the parents. Results Routine pathological microscopy showed that the structure of some of the muscle tissues was totally destroyed, while the structure of all cartilage tissues was basically intact. Three patterns of genomic DNA isolated from victims’ muscle tissues could be seen in gel electrophoresis, i.e. basically undegraded, partially degraded and totally degraded. STR profiling failed due to the degradation of genomic DNA of some of the muscle tissues, while all samples of the cartilage genomic DNA could be used for STR typing. Conclusion Paternity identification based on STR genotyping was an effective way to identify victims of accidents, and cartilage tissue from the victims was the first choice for that purpose.