Hug Raphael, Wood Anna E, Rühli Frank J, Eppenberger Patrick E
Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2025 May 3;15(1):15519. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-00407-6.
Biological sex determination is essential for analyzing human skeletal remains in archaeology, anthropology, and forensic science. This study investigates whether Raman spectroscopy of intact human dental enamel can be used as a non-destructive method for sex estimation. Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and logistic regression identified sex-specific spectral characteristics in 88 human teeth from 47 modern individuals (26 females, 21 males). The OPLS-DA model showed excellent performance, with RY(cum) = 0.943 and QY(cum) = 0.895. Raman shift wavenumbers at 373, 1182, and 1600 cm were identified as the most reliable discriminators and included in a final logistic regression model. This model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) of 0.98, a sensitivity of 0.87, and a specificity of 0.94. Our results indicate that Raman spectroscopy can effectively differentiate male and female human dental enamel based on subtle differences in molecular composition-possibly linked to residual differences between AMELX and AMELY-derived proteins. This non-destructive, rapid, and reliable method offers a valuable alternative for sex determination in contexts where chemical analysis is impractical or sample preservation is critical and holds promise for future applications in archaeological and forensic material.
生物性别鉴定对于考古学、人类学和法医学中人类骨骼遗骸的分析至关重要。本研究调查完整人类牙釉质的拉曼光谱是否可用作性别估计的非破坏性方法。正交偏最小二乘判别分析（OPLS-DA）和逻辑回归在来自47名现代个体（26名女性，21名男性）的88颗人类牙齿中确定了性别特异性光谱特征。OPLS-DA模型表现出色，RY（累积）= 0.943，QY（累积）= 0.895。373、1182和1600 cm处的拉曼位移波数被确定为最可靠的判别指标，并纳入最终的逻辑回归模型。该模型的受试者工作特征曲线下面积（ROC-AUC）为0.98，灵敏度为0.87，特异性为0.94。我们的结果表明，拉曼光谱可以根据分子组成的细微差异有效区分男性和女性人类牙釉质，这些差异可能与AMELX和AMELY衍生蛋白之间的残留差异有关。这种非破坏性、快速且可靠的方法为在化学分析不切实际或样本保存至关重要的情况下进行性别鉴定提供了一种有价值的替代方法，并有望在考古和法医材料的未来应用中发挥作用。
