Forensic Context

A study in humans demonstrated that the miR-142-3p was observed in all venous blood, semen, and saliva samples but not in menstrual blood samples, showing cross-reactivity and being used with miR-451a to differentiate venous blood from menstrual blood in a capillary electrophoresis-based body fluid identification system [Mayes et al. DOI:10.1016/j.legalmed.2017.10.013]. In Sprague-Dawley rats, research found the miR-142-3p was down-regulated in the hippocampus at day 1 and 3, then up-regulated at day 5 following traumatic brain injury, with qRT-PCR validation confirming its potential as a biomarker for injury assessment and inference of damage time [Sun et al. DOI:10.1007/s11596-014-1313-1].