A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel: testing of a less destructive sampling methodology

Penkman, Kirsty E H; Penkman, Kirsty E.H.; Griffin, Rebecca C.; Moody, Howard; Penkman, Kirsty E. H.; Fagan, Michael J.; Curtis, Neil; Collins, Matthew J.

doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x

A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel: testing of a less destructive sampling methodology

Penkman, Kirsty E H; Penkman, Kirsty E.H.; Griffin, Rebecca C.; Moody, Howard; Penkman, Kirsty E. H.; Fagan, Michael J.; Curtis, Neil; Collins, Matthew J.

Authors

Kirsty E H Penkman

Kirsty E.H. Penkman

Rebecca C. Griffin

Howard Moody

Kirsty E. H. Penkman

Michael J. Fagan

Neil Curtis

Matthew J. Collins

Abstract

Aspartic acid racemization has been found to be an accurate measure of age at death for recent forensic material. This paper examines the practicality of using acid etching of the tooth surface to extract amino acids from the enamel for racemization analysis. By serial etching of the tooth and contamination of the teeth with bovine serum albumin prior to etching, the ability of etching to remove contamination was assessed. The destructiveness of the method was visualized and quantified using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). By bleaching the teeth and by deeper etching it was possible to obtain more consistent values. While etching had little effect on the enamel at the macroscale, it did have an impact at the microscale. The quantities of enamel removed varied depending upon the tooth morphology, but were not large. Acid etching of enamel thus appears to be a promising new method for extracting proteins for amino acid racemization age estimation noninvasively.

Citation

Griffin, R. C., Moody, H., Penkman, K. E. H., Fagan, M. J., Curtis, N., & Collins, M. J. (2008). A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel: testing of a less destructive sampling methodology. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 53(4), 910-916. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Jul 4, 2008
Publication Date	2008-07
Journal	JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES
Print ISSN	0022-1198
Electronic ISSN	1556-4029
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	53
Issue	4
Pages	910-916
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x
Keywords	Pathology and Forensic Medicine; Genetics
Public URL	https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/396194
Publisher URL	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x