DNA Methylation from Bloodstain as a Forensic Age Estimation Method

Forensic identification is an effort to help law enforcement officers to reveal a person's identity. Personal identity is often a problem in criminal and civil cases as well as cases related to death without identity and mass disasters. Age estimation is very important in forensic identification. DNA methylation is a potential epigenetic modification for age estimation because the aging process of DNA resembles the developments regulated in processes that are tightly controlled by specific epigenetic modifications. In most cases of violent crime, bloodstains can be found at the crime scene. Bloodstain may come from victims, perpetrators of crime, or both. Bloodstain can be used to scientifically reveal the correlation between DNA methylation from bloodstain and the age of unknown person. This study aimed to determine the correlation betweeen DNA methylation from bloodstain and a person's age. The study was conducted at the Institute of Tropical Disease of Universitas Airlangga from July to October 2019 using the analytic observational approach on 10 samples consisting of 5 male and 5 female samples. It was discovered that the correlation coefficient between DNA methylation and age in male subjects was 0.888 with a significance value of 0.04 and 0.834 in female subjects with a significance value of 0.079. In conclusion, there is a significant correlation between percent methylation and age in male subjects. However, this correlation is not statistically significant in female subjects.