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

TY - JOUR

T1 - A new approach to amino acid racemization in enamel

T2 - Testing of a less destructive sampling methodology

AU - Griffin, Rebecca C.

AU - Moody, Howard

AU - Penkman, Kirsty E H

AU - Fagan, Michael J.

AU - Curtis, Neil

AU - Collins, Matthew J.

PY - 2008/7/1

Y1 - 2008/7/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Acid etching

KW - Age estimation

KW - Amino acid racemization

KW - Contamination

KW - Enamel

KW - Forensic anthropology

KW - Forensic science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=47349117154&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00753.x

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 18537866

AN - SCOPUS:47349117154

SN - 0022-1198

VL - 53

SP - 910

EP - 916

JO - Journal of Forensic Sciences

JF - Journal of Forensic Sciences

IS - 4

ER -