Forensic Context

A study in humans using microarray screening and RT-PCR validation found that the mir-372 was tested as a candidate for vaginal secretion identification, but quantitative RT-PCR results showed strong discordance and did not replicate the expected expression pattern, failing to confirm its specificity [Zubakov et al. DOI:10.1007/s00414-009-0402-3]. A subsequent human study using TaqMan RT-qPCR and a multi-class SVM model for body fluid identification reported that the mir-372 was not detected in any of the vaginal secretion samples analyzed [Li et al. DOI:10.1016/j.fsigen.2024.103180]. A study in humans demonstrated that the mir-372 is differentially expressed in vaginal secretions and was evaluated for forensic body fluid identification [Courts and Madea DOI:10.1016/J.Forsciint.2010.07.002]. Subsequent research in humans, cats, dogs, mice, and rabbits using SYBR Green qPCR found that expression levels of the mir-372 in buccal swabs from cats, dogs, mice, and rabbits were in the same range as those from human vaginal secretion swabs, indicating a lack of species specificity and a risk of false positive identification for human vaginal secretions [Peng et al. DOI:10.1016/j.forsciint.2019.04.036].