Screening and confirmation of microRNA markers for distinguishing between menstrual and peripheral blood

Identifying the origin of the blood left at a crime scene is crucial for crime scene reconstruction, especially in sexual assault. Nowadays there are no reliable and confirmatory assays to differentiate menstrual blood from peripheral blood. MiRNAs (MicroRNAs) are non-protein coding molecules with an important regulatory role at the post-transcriptional level. Although three study groups have screened out miRNA markers for menstrual blood identification, only one of them was confirmed through qPCR. In our study, we attempt to screen new markers for menstrual blood using Exiqon's miRCURY (TM) LNA Array. MiR-141-3p was selected according to the results of the microarray whose expression levels was 27.95 fold changes comparing with peripheral blood, then it was confirmed via qPCR. According to the results, a multi-step procedure of blood identification was set up. First, blood should be recognized by blood-specific makers like miR-451a and miR-16-5p, then menstrual blood could be identified from peripheral blood by new marker miR-141-3p. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.