Citation

Murray C, McAlister C, Elliott K. Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 2007; 1(3-4): 247-252.

Affiliation

The Forensic Science Service, Trident Court, 2960 Solihull Parkway, Birmingham Business Park, Solihull B37 7YN, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.fsigen.2007.05.003

PMID

19083769

Abstract

In cases of sexual assault involving an azoospermic assailant, vaginal swabs taken from the victim may fail to provide an autosomal DNA profile with which to search a suspect database, as the signal from any male cells present would be masked by that from the overwhelming number of female cells collected on the swab. Here, we describe a method of visually identifying diploid male cells in such samples using fluorescence in situ hybridisation, and selectively harvesting them by means of laser microdissection. This combination of techniques was tested on 26 post-coital vaginal swabs taken at a range of times after intercourse; the collected cells were then subjected to a simple lysis procedure and DNA was amplified using the AmpFlSTR SGMPlus multiplex under low copy number conditions. Useful DNA profiles were generated from samples taken up to 24h after intercourse.

Language: en