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Vullo CM, Catelli L, Ibarra Rodriguez AA, Papaioannou A, Merino JCÁ, Lopez-Parra AM, Gaviria A, Baeza-Richer C, Romanini C, González-Moya E, Casals F, Calafell F, Berardi G, Iannacone GC, Vicuña Giraldo GC, Zorba GK, Boschi I, Olarte JV, Ruiz Gomez JE, Acierno JP, Soto ML, Miranda MV, García King MD, Marrucci MA, Porto MJ, Piñero MH, Aler M, Stephenson Ojea MM, Navarrete SC, Toscanini U, Saragoni VG, Bozzo W, Posada Posada YC, Bajunovic Z, Solla LP, Parsons T. Second GHEP-ISFG exercise for DVI: "DNA-led" victims' identification in a simulated air crash. Forensic Sci Int Genet 2021; 53:102527. [PMID: 34034006 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2021.102527] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2021] [Revised: 04/22/2021] [Accepted: 04/30/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The Spanish and Portuguese-Speaking Working Group of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (GHEP-ISFG) has organized a second collaborative exercise on a simulated case of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), with the participation of eighteen laboratories. The exercise focused on the analysis of a simulated plane crash case of medium-size resulting in 66 victims with varying degrees of fragmentation of the bodies (with commingled remains). As an additional difficulty, this second exercise included 21 related victims belonging to 6 families among the 66 missings to be identified. A total number of 228 post-mortem samples were represented with aSTR and mtDNA profiles, with a proportion of partial aSTR profiles simulating charred remains. To perform the exercise, participants were provided with aSTR and mtDNA data of 51 reference pedigrees -some of which deficient-including 128 donors for identification purposes. The exercise consisted firstly in the comparison of the post-mortem genetic profiles in order to re-associate fragmented remains to the same individual and secondly in the identification of the re-associated remains by comparing aSTR and mtDNA profiles with reference pedigrees using pre-established thresholds to report a positive identification. Regarding the results of the post-mortem samples re-associations, only a small number of discrepancies among participants were detected, all of which were from just a few labs. However, in the identification process by kinship analysis with family references, there were more discrepancies in comparison to the correct results. The identification results of single victims yielded fewer problems than the identification of multiple related victims within the same family groups. Several reasons for the discrepant results were detected: a) the identity/non-identity hypotheses were sometimes wrongly expressed in the likelihood ratio calculations, b) some laboratories failed to use all family references to report the DNA match, c) In families with several related victims, some laboratories firstly identified some victims and then unnecessarily used their genetic information to identify the remaining victims within the family, d) some laboratories did not correctly use "prior odds" values for the Bayesian treatment of the episode for both post-mortem/post-mortem re-associations as well as the ante-mortem/post-mortem comparisons to evaluate the probability of identity. For some of the above reasons, certain laboratories failed to identify some victims. This simulated "DNA-led" identification exercise may help forensic genetic laboratories to gain experience and expertize for DVI or MPI in using genetic data and comparing their own results with the ones in this collaborative exercise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos M Vullo
- Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), Córdoba, Argentina.
| | - Laura Catelli
- Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), Córdoba, Argentina.
| | | | | | - J Carlos Álvarez Merino
- Laboratorio de Identificación Genética, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain.
| | - A M Lopez-Parra
- Laboratory of Forensic and Population Genetics, Dept of Toxicology and Health Legislation, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Aníbal Gaviria
- Lab de Genética Molecular Cruz Vital - Cruz Roja Ecuatoriana, Quito, Ecuador.
| | - Carlos Baeza-Richer
- Laboratory of Forensic and Population Genetics, Dept of Toxicology and Health Legislation, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Carola Romanini
- Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), Córdoba, Argentina.
| | | | - Ferran Casals
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF), Barcelona, Spain.
| | | | | | - Gian Carlo Iannacone
- Laboratorio De Biología Molecular y Genética Del Instituto De Medicina Legal, Lima, Peru.
| | | | - Gulbanu K Zorba
- Committee on Missing Persons Cyprus (CMP) Anthropological Laboratory, Nicosia, Cyprus.
| | - Ilaria Boschi
- Istituto di Sanità Pubblica-Medicina Legale Policlinico Gemelli, Roma, Italy.
| | - Jane Valdivia Olarte
- Laboratorio De Biología Molecular y Genética Del Instituto De Medicina Legal, Lima, Peru.
| | | | | | - Manuel López Soto
- Instituto Nacional de Toxicología y Ciencias Forenses (INTCF), Madrid, Spain.
| | | | | | | | - Maria J Porto
- Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses, Coimbra, Portugal.
| | | | - Mercedes Aler
- Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses, Valencia, Spain.
| | | | | | | | - Victor G Saragoni
- Unidad de Genética Forense, Servicio Médico Legal, Santiago de Chile, Chile.
| | - Walter Bozzo
- Banco Nacional De Datos Genéticos, CABA, Argentina.
| | | | | | - Lourdes Prieto Solla
- Grupo de Medicina Xenómica, Instituto de Ciencias Forenses, USC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Comisaría General de Policía Científica. Madrid.
| | - Thomas Parsons
- International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP), USA.
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