表观遗传学在法医学中的应用研究进展

Progress on Epigenetics Applications in Forensic Science

表观遗传学指DNA序列无变化的、可遗传的基因表达改变,主要包括DNA甲基化、组蛋白修饰、染色质重塑、基因组印记、X染色体失活以及非编码RNA调控等方面。随着研究的深入,表观遗传学逐渐在法医学实践常遇到的特殊问题中发挥作用,如妊娠期胎儿父权的认定、单亲鉴定中亲代必需等位基因的确定、同卵双生子的区分、微量组织来源确定及伪造DNA的鉴定等。本文介绍了表观遗传学的基本概念、研究内容,并对表观遗传学在亲权鉴定、年龄推断、双生子鉴别及组织来源鉴定和死亡时间推断等方面的最新进展进行综述。

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. Such changes include DNA methylation, histone modification, chromatin remodeling, genomic imprinting, X chromosome inactivation and non-coding RNA regulation. Recent progresses on epigenetics open new possibilities in tackling these challenging problems in forensic science, including identification of fetal paternity testing in embryonic period, determination of the necessary allele in paternity testing, discrimination of identical twins, origination analysis of micro tissue, verification of forged DNA. This review focuses on epigenetics concept and its latest application in the field of paternity testing, age estimation, discrimination between the twins, identification of tissue of origin, and estimation of postmortem interval.