Forensic Context

A study in humans demonstrated that hsa-miR-1260b is a highly overexpressed and specific marker for vaginal secretions, showing high sensitivity and specificity with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 1.00 in validation experiments [Park et al. DOI:10.1002/elps.201400075]. Another human study confirmed the mir-1260b as a vaginal secretion-specific candidate and found its much lower relative expression in peripheral and menstrual blood compared to other body fluids helps distinguish blood from non-blood samples, and it contributed to body fluid prediction within probabilistic models [Li et al. DOI:10.1007/s00414-021-02678-w]. A study in humans demonstrated that the mir-1260b is highly expressed in vaginal secretion and, when combined with other markers like miR-203a-3p and miR-888-5p within a probabilistic discriminant model (PLS-DA), effectively contributed to the identification of forensically relevant body fluids including venous blood, saliva, semen, and vaginal secretion [Fujimoto et al. DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-50796-8]. A subsequent human study validated the mir-1260b as a vaginal secretion-specific marker with high tissue specificity, and a set of 12 miRNAs including this marker successfully distinguished all tested body fluids, including peripheral blood, menstrual blood, saliva, semen, and vaginal secretion, via principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering [Altmeyer et al. DOI:10.1002/elps.202400089].