Demonstration of Protein-Based Human Identification Using the Hair Shaft Proteome

YesHuman identification from biological material is largely dependent on the ability to characterize genetic polymorphisms in DNA. Unfortunately, DNA can degrade in the environment, sometimes below the level at which it can be amplified by PCR. Protein however is chemically more robust than DNA and can persist for longer periods. Protein also contains genetic variation in the form of single amino acid polymorphisms. These can be used to infer the status of non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism alleles. To demonstrate this, we used mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics to characterize hair shaft proteins in 66 European-American subjects. A total of 596 single nucleotide polymorphism alleles were correctly imputed in 32 loci from 22 genes of subjects’ DNA and directly validated using Sanger sequencing. Estimates of the probability of resulting individual non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism allelic profiles in the European population, using the product rule, resulted in a maximum power of discrimination of 1 in 12,500. Imputed non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism profiles from European–American subjects were considerably less frequent in the African population (maximum likelihood ratio = 11,000). The converse was true for hair shafts collected from an additional 10 subjects with African ancestry, where some profiles were more frequent in the African population. Genetically variant peptides were also identified in hair shaft datasets from six archaeological skeletal remains (up to 260 years old). This study demonstrates that quantifiable measures of identity discrimination and biogeographic background can be obtained from detecting genetically variant peptides in hair shaft protein, including hair from bioarchaeological contexts.The Technology Commercialization Innovation Program (Contracts #121668, #132043) of the Utah Governors Office of Commercial Development, the Scholarship Activitie

The unique vulnerabilities of children to environmental hazards

Children in their first 1000\ua0days of life are extraordinarily vulnerable to environmental hazards, especially in their specific settings which are predominantly the intrauterine and domestic environment. Their vulnerabilities can be thus categorised in terms of their developmental phases, environmental settings, and environmental hazards within those settings that characterise their environmental exposures. While we generally have a good understanding of environmental, chemical, physical, and infectious hazards in the different environments of a child and their parents, rapidly intensifying in recent times, global environmental and demographic drivers such as climate change, population growth, urbanisation, antimicrobial resistance, prolific production use of chemicals, emerging infectious diseases, and pollution caused by inadequate waste management, thus exacerbating complexological and anthropogenic services, can increase environmental hazard potential for a very young child if not exposures to well-known as well as emerging hazards. Parental behaviour and socio-economic status, etc. are optimally managed