State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai, 200237, China.
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Crime Scene Evidence, Shanghai Research Institute of Criminal Science and Technology, Zhongshan North No 1 Road, Shanghai, 200083, China.
Int J Legal Med. 2019 Sep;133(5):1333-1339. doi: 10.1007/s00414-019-02076-3. Epub 2019 Jun 4.
As an important aspect of epigenetics, DNA methylation has been proven to be suitable for forensic DNA analysis. By detecting changes in DNA methylation, it is desirable to construct a model of age patterns associated with it to infer the age of the individual. The hTERT gene methylation is closely related to tumors, but there are few reports on the relationship between hTERT gene promoter methylation and age. In this study, we utilized the methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction and real-time PCR (relative quantification and absolute quantification) approach to explore the connection between hTERT DNA methylation and age prediction. We fit three models for age prediction based on methylation assay for 90 blood samples from donors aged 1-79 years old. Among them, the model of absolute quantification of real-time enabled the age prediction with R = 0.9634. We verified the linear regression model with a validation set of 30 blood samples where prediction average error was 4.29 years. Generally, this reliable method improves the DNA methylation analysis of forensic samples.
作为表观遗传学的一个重要方面，DNA 甲基化已被证明适合法医 DNA 分析。通过检测 DNA 甲基化的变化，希望构建与之相关的年龄模式模型，以推断个体的年龄。hTERT 基因甲基化与肿瘤密切相关，但关于 hTERT 基因启动子甲基化与年龄的关系的报道较少。在这项研究中，我们利用甲基化特异性聚合酶链反应和实时 PCR（相对定量和绝对定量）方法探讨了 hTERT DNA 甲基化与年龄预测之间的关系。我们根据 90 名年龄在 1-79 岁的供体的甲基化检测结果拟合了三种年龄预测模型。其中，实时绝对定量模型可实现 R=0.9634 的年龄预测。我们用 30 份血样的验证集来验证线性回归模型，预测平均误差为 4.29 岁。总的来说，这种可靠的方法提高了法医样本的 DNA 甲基化分析。
