Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and International Forensic Research Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA.
Anthropology Department, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Apr 2;22(7):3717. doi: 10.3390/ijms22073717.
Age-at-death estimation constitutes one of the key parameters for identification of human remains in forensic investigations. However, for applications in forensic anthropology, many current methods are not sufficiently accurate for adult individuals, leading to chronological age estimates erring by ±10 years. Based on recent trends in aging studies, DNA methylation has great potential as a solution to this problem. However, there are only a few studies that have been published utilizing DNA methylation to determine age from human remains. The aim of the present study was to expand the range of this work by analyzing DNA methylation in dental pulp from adult individuals. Healthy erupted third molars were extracted from individuals aged 22-70. DNA from pulp was isolated and bisulfite converted. Pyrosequencing was the chosen technique to assess DNA methylation. As noted in previous studies, we found that ELOVL2 and FHL2 CpGs played a role in age estimation. In addition, three new markers were evaluated-NPTX2, KLF14, and SCGN. A set of CpGs from these five loci was used in four different multivariate regression models, providing a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) between predicted and chronological age of 1.5-2.13 years. The findings from this research can improve age estimation, increasing the accuracy of identification in forensic anthropology.
年龄推断是法医调查中确定人类遗骸身份的关键参数之一。然而，对于法医人类学的应用而言，许多当前的方法对于成年人来说不够准确，导致年代年龄估计误差在±10 岁以内。基于衰老研究的最新趋势，DNA 甲基化在解决这个问题上具有很大的潜力。然而，只有少数几篇利用 DNA 甲基化从人类遗骸中确定年龄的研究已经发表。本研究的目的是通过分析成年个体牙髓中的 DNA 甲基化来扩展这项工作的范围。从年龄在 22-70 岁的个体中提取健康萌出的第三磨牙。从牙髓中分离出 DNA 并进行亚硫酸氢盐转化。焦磷酸测序是评估 DNA 甲基化的首选技术。正如之前的研究中所指出的，我们发现 ELOVL2 和 FHL2 CpG 参与了年龄估计。此外，还评估了三个新的标记物-NPTX2、KLF14 和 SCGN。这五个基因座的一组 CpG 被用于四个不同的多元回归模型中，提供了预测年龄与实际年龄之间的平均绝对误差（MAE）为 1.5-2.13 年。这项研究的结果可以提高年龄推断的准确性，从而提高法医人类学中的身份识别准确性。
