Microbial DNA fingerprinting of human fingerprints: dynamic colonization of fingertip microflora challenges human host inferences for forensic purposes.

ABSTRACT: Human fingertip microflora is transferred to touched objects and may provide forensically relevant information on individual hosts, such as on geographic origins, if endogenous microbial skin species/strains would be retrievable from physical fingerprints and would carry geographically restricted DNA diversity. We tested the suitability of physical fingerprints for revealing human host information, with geographic inference as example, via microbial DNA fingerprinting. We showed that the transient exogenous fingertip microflora is frequently different from the resident endogenous bacteria of the same individuals. In only 54% of the experiments, the DNA analysis of the transient fingertip microflora allowed the detection of defined, but often not the major, elements of the resident microflo

SUBMITTER: Tims S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2955242 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature