Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-13-2017

MeSH Terms

Blood Stains, Peroxidase

Subject: LCSH

Bloodstains, Peroxidase, Crime scenes

Disciplines

Forensic Science and Technology

Abstract

Blood is a commonly encountered biological fluid in criminal investigations concerning a violent incident, and visual traces of the fluid on a suspect’s clothing can be diminished through laundering. This study aims to analyze the effects of laundering and the application of commercially available blood enhancement reagents commonly used to improve visualization of dilute bloodstains and their impact on DNA recovery. Enhancement reagents Hungarian Red, Coomassie Blue, Amido Black, luminol, Bluestar® Forensic Magnum, and aqueous Leuco Crystal Violet (LCV) were used to enhance human blood on cotton, polyester, denim, and wool following laundering. DNA was extracted from these samples using a QIAamp® DNA Investigator Mini Kit and quantified using a NanoDrop™ OneC UV-Vis spectrophotometer. This study revealed the peroxidase based reagents to produce the greatest sensitivity on the natural fabrics, reacting positively down to a blood dilution of 1:1000. The protein reagents produced greater sensitivity on the synthetic fabrics, reacting positively down to a blood dilution of 1:10. Peroxidase stains relying on chemiluminescent properties rather than colorimetric results produced positive results on the dark colored fabrics as sufficient color contrast was not achieved with the protein stains. The resulting yields of extracted DNA suggest that quantifiable amounts of DNA originating from bloodstains persist despite laundering and enhancement. Additionally, measurements indicated that the application of some blood enhancement reagents, particularly Amido Black, may affect DNA recovery.

Comments

© 2017 Hartley G, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The article originally appeared in Journal of Forensic Research and Analysis.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publisher Citation

Hartley, Gabrielle & Glynn, Claire. (2017). A Comparative Analysis of Protein and Peroxidase Blood Enhancement Reagents Following Laundering and their Impact on DNA Recovery. Journal of Forensic Research and Analysis 1(1):1-5.

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