Persistence of Semen on five different fabric types in various water environments

Persistence of cellular material after exposure to water

“…Metal and ceramic, conversely, were found to have a statistically different loss of cells after 2 days in tap water (2 days p = 2.44 × 10 −4 , 3 days p = 6.27 × 10 −6 and 5 days p = 7.22 × 10 −4 ) (Table S2), whereby ceramic had a greater loss of cells at these timeframes as seen in S2), which could be due to the deviance from the trend of increasing cell loss for ceramic at 5 days. This aligned with current literature, which had found for samples exposed to tap water, the influence of substrate type had a significant impact on biological material persistence over time [7,8]. More specifically, this trend, of textured surfaces, like the ceramic, being significantly different from smooth surfaces, like the plastic and metal, had been observed in studies within [7] and outside of aqueous environments [15].…”

“…An aim for perpetrators of criminal acts is to remain undetected, which can be achieved by removing biological evidence, such as by disposing of items in sources of water [1]. The aqueous environment can remove biological evidence over time, such as touch DNA [2][3][4] that is left by physical contact and is the most common evidence type submitted for forensic DNA analysis [5,6], in addition to other biological materials [7][8][9][10]. However, because touch DNA cannot be visualized without an enhancement treatment [11], sampling accuracy is limited to educated assumptions on the likely location where touch DNA was deposited [6,[12][13][14], which could contribute to its poor profiling success around the world [5,[14][15][16].…”

“…Increased exposure to water has been shown to have a detrimental impact on DNA persistence in numerous aqueous conditions [3,[7][8][9][10]. This negative impact of water exposure, unfortunately, has not escaped the notice of offenders, with numerous reports of victims of assault and their clothing being subjected to water exposure [18,19].…”

“…The type of water a biological material is exposed to can also influence the persistence of DNA. Freshwater, specifically tap water, appears to have the least negative impact on cell and DNA persistence compared to other water types, such as seawater [7,8,10,18]. The ideal conditions for preserving DNA underwater, regardless of biological material, were found to be cold, stagnant tap water [1,2,7,8,10].…”

“…Freshwater, specifically tap water, appears to have the least negative impact on cell and DNA persistence compared to other water types, such as seawater [7,8,10,18]. The ideal conditions for preserving DNA underwater, regardless of biological material, were found to be cold, stagnant tap water [1,2,7,8,10]. Exposure to other aqueous conditions caused increased loss of cellular material, further reducing the time period in which useful biological material could be successfully recovered.…”