Estimating chronological age from blood based on mRNA expression and DNA methylation biomarkers

Developers

M. Kayser, D. Zubakov, F. Liu, etc.

Description of the technology

Establishing the age of unknown person may provide important leads in police investigations, disaster victim identification, identity fraud cases, etc. Current methods mostly rely on odontological or skeleton analysis. The establishment of molecular methods for forensic age estimation using samples that possess no morphological information, such as bloodstains, would be extremely valuable as this type of samples is commonly found at crime scenes. Previously, age-dependent accumulation of mtDNA deletions and telomere length measurement were investigated for DNA-based age estimation. However, dedicated forensic studies showed that both of these molecular approaches suffer from low sensitivity and/or poor reliability and accuracy.

Recently, Dutch scientists led by prof. M. Kayser proposed a new DNA-based method for forensic age estimation from blood stains that is based on the quantification of T-cell specific DNA rearrangements (sjTREC). Although the accuracy of this new method allows the reliable prediction of age categories spanning 20 years from blood-derived DNA, the standard error of the individual-based age estimation (about ±9 years) is too high for accurate point age estimation. In search for additional biomarkers for molecular age estimation the same scientific group performed genome-wide profiling of gene expression along with genome-wide profiling of DNA methylatfon on a set of whole blood samples obtained from various individuals of different age. Using statistical analysis the scientists identified candidate mRNA and CpG methylation markers that are highly informative for chronological age.

Practical application

Preliminary results indicate that the newly identified biomarkers have a potential to predict a person’s age from blood with a higher accuracy than any other method proposed so far.

Laboratories

• Department of Forensic Molecular Biology, Erasmus MC — University Medical Center Rotterdam, (Netherlands)
• Erasmus Center of Biomics, Erasmus MC — University Medical Center Rotterdam, (Netherlands)
• Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus MC — University Medical Center Rotterdam, (Netherlands)
• Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC — Universify Medical Center Rotterdam, (Netherlands)
• Epigenomics AG, Berlin, (Germany)

Links

Publications

• Zubakov, Dmitry, et al. «Estimating human age from T-cell DNA rearrangements." Current Biology 20.22 (2010): R970-R971.
• Ren, Fu, et al. «Estimation of human age according to telomere shortening in peripheral blood leukocytes of Tibetan." The American journal of forensic medicine and pathology 30.3 (2009): 252–255.
• Karlsson, Andreas O., et al. «Estimating human age in forensic samples by analysis of telomere repeats." Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series 1.1 (2008): 569–571.
• Gršković, Branka, et al. «DNA methylation: the future of crime scene investigation?." Molecular biology reports 40.7 (2013): 4349–4360.