A proteomic approach for the rapid, multi-informative and reliable identification of blood

Abstract

Blood evidence is frequently encountered at the scene of violent crimes and can provide valuable intelligence in the forensic investigation of serious offences. Because many of the current enhancement methods used by crime scene investigators are presumptive, the visualisation of blood is not always reliable nor does it bear additional information. In the work presented here, two methods employing a shotgun bottom up proteomic approach for the detection of blood are reported; the developed protocols employ both an in solution digestion method and a recently proposed procedure involving immobilization of trypsin on hydrophobin Vmh2 coated MALDI sample plate. The methods are complementary as whilst one yields more identifiable proteins (as biomolecular signatures), the other is extremely rapid (5 minutes). Additionally, data demonstrate the opportunity to discriminate blood provenance even when two different blood sources are present in a mixture. This approach is also suitable for old bloodstains which had been previously chemically enhanced, as experiments conducted on a 9-year-old bloodstain deposited on a ceramic tile demonstrate.

Marine fungi as source of new hydrophobins

“…These assemblies show outstanding stability and can be depolymerized in 100% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) whereas class II HFBs form less stable polymers that are soluble in some organic solvents or SDS aqueous solution, and lack the rodlet appearance of class I HFBs [11]. Both types of HFBs have been used for several biotechnological applications, such as dispersion of hydrophobic materials, foam stabilization in food products, surface coating and modification of the surface wettability, immobilization of enzymes, peptides, antibodies and nanomaterials on various surfaces [12], [13], [14] and [15].The marine environment host a huge biodiversity of (micro) organisms, and fungi make up a large part of them [16]. Marine fungi form an ecological, and not a taxonomic group.…”

Proteomics goes forensic: Detection and mapping of blood signatures in fingermarks

“…However, in a forensic context, the detection of a handful of blood specific proteins via the more reliable bottom up proteomic approach using MALDI MS would be more than appropriate. This research hypothesis was developed in our laboratories into a study demonstrating the opportunity to recover multiple blood protein signatures in as little as 5 min of sample preparation . This work also showed that molecular signatures enable provenance discrimination and that they can also be retrieved in very old samples which were pre‐treated with blood enhancement techniques, thus opening a new investigative avenue for cold cases.…”

Self‐assembly of two hydrophobins from marine fungi affected by interaction with surfaces

“…Only a few proteins belonging to Class I HFBs have been analyzed so far and they show quite different self‐assembling mechanisms (Gandier et al, ; Gravagnuolo et al, ). We have focused our work on the discovery of new Class I HFBs, (Armenante et al, ) and the characterization of their self‐assembling (Gravagnuolo et al, ; Longobardi et al, ) to enable modern biotechnological applications (Gravagnuolo et al, ,; Kaur et al, ; Longobardi et al, , ; Patel et al, ; Piscitelli et al, ,; Politi et al, , ). Additionally, because of their critical role in fungal biology, the knowledge of their mechanism of action may be useful for the discovery of novel antifungals (Pham et al, ).…”