Immunohistochemical staining of skin-expressed proteins to identify exfoliated epidermal cells for forensic purposes.

The determination of cell type in biological casework samples would be helpful to identify the type of body fluids and interpret the DNA source in forensic laboratories. Exfoliated epidermal cells are considered to be a reasonable source of touch DNA; therefore, we developed and assessed an immunohistochemistry (IHC) procedure for identifying exfoliated epidermal cells as a screening test of touch DNA samples. Among five candidate protein markers investigated in this study, keratin 10 and kallikrein-related peptidase 5 were strongly expressed in the stratum corneum layer of the skin; however, their specificity was insufficient to identify epidermal cells.

The applicability of ELISA detection of gastric mucosa-expressing proteins for the identification of vomit.

The identification of vomit stains may be helpful for crime scene reconstruction. However, there is no specific and convenient method for identifying vomit stain. Therefore, to establish the procedure for forensic identification of vomit stains, we focused on four gastric mucosa-expressing proteins, pepsinogen I (PGA), pepsinogen II (PGC), gastrin (GAST), and mucin 5AC (MUC5AC).

Discriminant functions for sex estimation of modern Japanese skulls.

The purpose of this study is to generate a set of discriminant functions in order to estimate the sex of modern Japanese skulls. To conduct the analysis, the anthropological measurement data of 113 individuals (73 males and 40 females) were collected from recent forensic anthropological test records at the National Research Institute of Police Science, Japan. Birth years of the individuals ranged from 1926 to 1979, and age at death was over 19 years for all individuals.

Application of computerised correction method for optical distortion of two-dimensional facial image in superimposition between three-dimensional and two-dimensional facial images.

The applicability of computerised correction of optical distortion to two-dimensional (2D)/three-dimensional (3D) facial image superimposition was investigated. Two-dimensional (2D) facial images of 10 male volunteers were taken with a commercially available closed circuit device (CCD) camera (reference camera) at four areas of the lens field: the centre, top, upper right and right. Correction was made by computer by calculating differences vis-à-vis the co-ordinates of dots on a test chart.

Development of species identification tests targeting the 16S ribosomal RNA coding region in mitochondrial DNA.

This report describes the development of a species testing system based on the diversity of nucleotide sequences in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) among species. Five species, human, cow, pig, dog, and cat, were considered. The partial nucleotide sequences in 16S ribosomal RNA coding region were chosen as the target for discriminating the species.

A new retrieval system for a database of 3D facial images.

A new retrieval system for a 3D facial image database was designed and its reliability was experimentally examined. This system has two steps, firstly to automatically adjust the orientation of all 3D facial images in a database to that of the 2D facial image of a target person, and then to identify the facial image of the target person from the adjusted 3D facial images in the database using a graph-matching method. From the experimental study [M.