Time Radically Alters Ex Situ Evidentiary Soil 16S Bacterial Profiles Produced Via Next-Generation Sequencing,

Previous research has revealed the potential of soil bacterial profiling for forensic purposes; however, investigators have not thoroughly examined fluctuations in microbial profiles from soil aged on evidence. In this research, soils collected from multiple habitats were placed on evidence items and sampled over time, and then bacterial profiles were generated via next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA locus. Bacterial abundance charts and nonmetric multidimensional scaling plots provided visual representation of bacterial profiles temporally, while supervised classification was used to statistically associate evidence to a source.

Next-Generation Sequencing of the Bacterial 16S rRNA Gene for Forensic Soil Comparison: A Feasibility Study.

Soil has the potential to be valuable forensic evidence linking a person or item to a crime scene; however, there is no established soil individualization technique. In this study, the utility of soil bacterial profiling via next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was examined for associating soils with their place of origin. Soil samples were collected from ten diverse and nine similar habitats over time, and within three habitats at various horizontal and vertical distances.