Forensic Context

A study in humans established a multi-class support vector machine (MSVM) classification model for forensic body fluid identification using 12 key miRNA markers, where the miR-15a-5p was evaluated as a body fluid-specific marker for peripheral blood identification, showing the highest and most distinguishable expression levels in peripheral and menstrual blood compared to non-blood samples [Li et al. DOI:10.1016/j.fsigen.2024.103180]. A study in humans demonstrated that the miR-15a-5p is significantly down-regulated (7-fold) in plasma from young patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) compared to healthy controls, exhibiting a discriminatory power with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.796 [Tong et al. DOI:10.3390/ijms19051467]. In a separate experimental model, research in Wistar rats showed that the miR-15a-5p is up-regulated (2.69-fold) in the striatum and (1.67-fold) in the ventral tegmental area of heroin-addicted animals [Pence et al. DOI:10.1007/S00221-024-06972-Y].