Home > Journals > Journal of Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology

Journal of Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology

Submit your article Read this Journals View all journals
Full Text (PDF)
Review Article

DNA Methylation: An Approach to Forensic Age Prediction by Molecular Mechanism

Nidhi Sharma, Chittaranjan Behera, Sudhir K Gupta

Author Information

Licence:

Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

Journal of Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology 8(2):p 81-88, july-december 2022. | DOI: https://doi.org/10.21088/jfct.2454.9363.8222.8

How Cite This Article:

Nidhi Sharma, Chittaranjan Behera, Sudhir K Gupta/DNA Methylation: An Approach to Forensic Age Prediction by Molecular Mechanism/J Forensic Chemistry Toxicol. 2022;8(2):81–88.

Timeline

Received : March 17, 2022         Accepted : April 20, 2022          Published : December 25, 2022

Abstract

Epigenetic processes have an important role in gene expression which is affected by living environments conditions. Occurrence of epigenetics is conciliated by two major molecular mechanisms which includes histone modification and DNA methylation. DNA methylation is an epigenetic channel action, this is a natural process where transmission of a methyl group on the C5 position of the cytosine to form 5-methylcytosine at genome. So, epigenetic change is normal and continual fact that may be influenced by many factors including age, the environment / lifestyle, and disease state. The normal process of aging causes a span of transformation of tissues and organs which gathered over life time. Now this could be possible to be examined through molecular based method. In view of this methylation levels of age associated marker have been used for highly accurate age prediction in this area and depicted that an age associated methylation marker on specific gene location found to be useful with marginal lapse. In Indian scenario there are no such study published on epigenetic markers for age estimation. In future for forensic cases work Molecular biomarkers may be significant to estimate age.

References

  • 1.   Lisa D Moore, Thuc Le, and Guoping Fan. DNA Methylation and Its Basic Function. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2013; 38: 23-38.
  • 2.   Kader F, Ghai M. DNA methylation and application in forensic sciences. Forensic Science International. 2015;249: 255-265.
  • 3.   Vidaki A, Ballard D, Aliferi Aet.al. DNA methylationbased forensic age prediction using artificial neural networks and next generation sequencing. Forensic Science International: Genetics. 2017;28: 225-236.
  • 4.   Suchita R,kushawaha KPS.Application of DNA Methylation in Forensic Science: A review. Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. 2016;10 :129-131.
  • 5.   Lee HY, Lee S D and Shin K-J. Forensic DNA methylation profiling from evidence material for investigative leads.BMB Rep. 2016; 49: 359-369.
  • 6.   Weber-Lehmann J, Schilling E, Gradl G et.al. Finding the needle in the haystack: Differentiating ‘‘identical’’ twins in paternity testing and forensics by ultra-deep next generation sequencing. Forensic Science International: Genetics.2014; 9: 42-46.
  • 7.   Horvath S, Zhang Y, Langfelder P, Kahn RS, Boks MP, van Eijk K, van den Berg LH, Ophoff RA. Aging effects on DNA methylation modules in human brain and blood tissue, Genome Biol. 2012;13: R97.
  • 8.   Forat S, Huettel B, Reinhardt R et.al. Methylation Markers for the Identification of Body Fluids and Tissues from Forensic Trace Evidence. PLoS ONE. 2016;11: 1-19.
  • 9.   Xu, C. et al. A novel strategy for forensic age prediction by DNA methylation and support vector regression model. Sci. Rep. 2015;5:17788.
  • 10.   Kurdyukov S and Bullock M. DNA Methylation Analysis: Choosing the Right Method. Biology. 2016; 5, 3; 2-21.
  • 11.   Tiffany J. Morris□ and Stephan Beck. Analysis pipelines and packages for Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (450k) data. Methods. 2015;15; 72: 3-8.
  • 12.   ChoS, Jung S.-E, HongS.R, LeeE.H, LeeJ.H, Lee S.D, Lee H.Y. Independent validation of DNA-based approaches for age prediction in blood, Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. 2017; 29: 250-256.
  • 13.   Salehi J, Abdelaal L, Gomaa R. Use of mRNA marker for age prediction in healthy and unhealthy individuals of Indian subcontinent. International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research (IJSBAR).2018; 37:175-184.
  • 14.   Bocklandt S, Lin W, Sehl ME, et al. Epigenetic predictor of age. PLoS One. 2011;6:e14821.
  • 15.   Koch C.M, Wagner W. Epigenetic-ageing-signature to determine age in different tissues. Ageing (Albany NY). 2011; 3:1018-27.
  • 16.   Pirazzini C, Giulana C, Bacalini M.G et.al. Space/ population and time/age in DNA methylation variability in humans: a study on IGF2/H19 locus in different Italian populations and in mono- and dizygotic twins of different age, Ageing(Albany NY). 2012; 4:509-520.
  • 17.   Johansson A, Enroth S, Gyllensten U. Continuous Aging of the Human DNA Methylome Throughout the Human Lifespan PLOS ONE.2013;8; e67378.
  • 18.   Bekaert B, Kamalandua A,Zapico S C, de Voorde WV, Decorte R. Improved age determination of blood and teeth samples using a selected set of DNA methylation markers. Epigenetics.2015;10: 922-930.
  • 19.   Giuliani C, Cilli E, Bacalini M G, et.al.Inferring Chronological Age from DNA Methylation Patterns of Human Teeth. Am J Phys Anthropol.2016; 159:585-95.
  • 20.   Naue J, Hoefsloot HCJ, Mook ORF, et al. Chronological age prediction based on DNA methylation: massive parallel sequencing and random forest regression. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2017; 31:19-28.
  • 21.   M. Spólnicka1, E. Pośpiech, B. Pepłońska.et.al DNA methylation in ELOVL2 and C1orf132 correctly predicted chronological age of individuals from three disease groups. Int J Legal Med.2018; 132:1-11.
  • 22.   JungSE , LimS M , HongS R , LeeE H , ShinKJ , LeeH Y. DNA methylation of the ELOVL2, FHL2, KLF14, C1orf132/MIR29B2C, and TRIM59 genes for age prediction from blood, saliva, and buccal swab samples. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2019 ;38:1-8.
  • 23.   Correia Dias H, Cordeiro C, Corte Real F, Cunha E, Manco L. Age estimation based on DNA methylation using blood samples from deceased individuals. J Forensic Sci. 2020; 65:465-70.
  • 24.   ZapicoS C, GauthierQ, Antevska A, . McCordB R. Identifying Methylation Patterns in Dental Pulp Aging: Application to Age-at-Death Estimation in Forensic Anthropology.Int J Mol Sci. 2021;22: 3717.
  • 25.   Hannum G, Guinney J, Zhao L, Zhang L, Hughes G, Sadda S, Klotzle B, Bibikova M, Fan J B, Gao Y. et al. Genome-wide methylation profiles reveal quantitative views of human aging rates. Molecular cell. 2013;49: 359-367.
  • 26.   Weidner C I, Lin Q, Koch C M, Eisele L, Beier F, Ziegler P, Bauerschlag D O, Jockel K H, Erbel R, Muhleisen T W. et al. Aging of blood can be tracked by DNA methylation changes at just three CpG sites. Genome biology. 2014;15: R24.
  • 27.   Zbieć-Piekarska R, Spólnicka M, Kupiec T, Makowska Ż, Spas A, Parys-Proszek A, et al. Examination of DNA methylation status of the ELOVL2 marker may be useful for humanage prediction in forensic science. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2015;14:161-7.
  • 28.   Park JL, Kim JH, Seo E, Bae DH, Kim SY, Lee HC, et al. Identification and evaluation of age-correlated DNA methylation markers for forensic use. Forensic Sci Int Genet.2016; 23:64-70.
  • 29.   Eipel M, Mayer F, Arent T, Ferreira MR, Birkhofer C, Gerstenmaier U, et al. Epigenetic age predictions based on buccal swabs are more precise in combination with cell typespecific DNA methylation signatures. Aging (Albany NY).2016; 8:1034-48.
  • 30.   Freire-Aradas A, Phillips C, Mosquera-Miguel A, Girón-Santamaría L, Gómez-Tato A, Casares de Cal M, et al. Development of a methylation marker set for forensic age estimation using analysis of public methylation data and the Agena Bioscience Epi TYPER system. Forensic Sci Int Genet.2016; 24:65- 74.
  • 31.   Freire-Aradas A, Phillips C, Girón-Santamaría L,Mosquera-Miguel A, Gómez-Tato A, Casares de Cal MÁ, et al. Tracking age-correlated DNA methylation markers in the young. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2018; 36:50-9.
  • 32.   Aliferi A, Ballard D, Gallidabino MD, Thurtle H, Barron L, Syndercombe Court D. DNA methylationbased age prediction using massively parallel sequencing data and multiple machinelearning models. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2018; 37:215-26.
  • 33.   Shi L, Jiang F, Ouyang F, Zhang J, Wang Z, Shen X. DNA methylation markers in combination with skeletal and dental ages to improve age estimation in children. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2018; 33:1-9.
  • 34.   Feng L, Peng F, Li S, Jiang L, Sun H, Ji A, et al. Systematic feature selection improves accuracy of methylation-based forensic age estimation in Han Chinese males. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2018; 35:38- 45.
  • 35.   Peng F, Feng L, Chen J, Wang L, Li P, Ji A, et al. Validation of methylation-based forensic age estimation in time-series bloodstains on FTA cards and gauze at room temperature conditions. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2019; 40:168-74.
  • 36.   Xu Y, Li X, Yang Y, Li C, Shao X. Human age prediction based on DNA methylation of non-blood tissues. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2019; 171:11-8.
  • 37.   Fleckhaus J, Schneider PM. Novel multiplex strategy for DNA methylation-based age prediction from small amounts of DNA via pyrosequencing. Forensic Sci Int Genet. 2020; 44:102189.
  • 38.   Correia DiasH, CunhaE, Corte RealF, MancoL. Age prediction in living: Forensic epigenetic age estimation based on blood samples.Legal Medicine. 2020;47:101763.
  • 39.   Correia Dias H, Cordeiro C, Corte Real F, Cunha E, Manco L.Age estimation based on DNA methylation using blood samples from deceased individuals. J Forensic Sci. 2020;65:465-70.

Data Sharing Statement

There are no additional data available. All raw data and code are available upon request.

Funding

This research received no funding.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed significantly to the work and approve its publication.

Ethics Declaration

This article does not involve any human or animal subjects, and therefore does not require ethics approval.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the patients, their families, and all those who have contributed to this study.

Conflicts of Interest

No conflicts of interest in this work.

About this article

Cite this article

Nidhi Sharma, Chittaranjan Behera, Sudhir K Gupta/DNA Methylation: An Approach to Forensic Age Prediction by Molecular Mechanism/J Forensic Chemistry Toxicol. 2022;8(2):81–88.

Licence:

Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

Received Accepted Published
March 17, 2022 April 20, 2022 December 25, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21088/jfct.2454.9363.8222.8

Keywords

DNA methylationEpigeneticsAge predictionAge associate CpGs

Article Level Metrics

Last Updated

Tuesday 08 September 2026, 14:35:34 (IST)

1367

Accesses

4
133
00

Citations


NA
NA
NA

Download citation


Article Keywords

Keyword Highlighting

Highlight selected keywords in the article text.


Timeline

Received March 17, 2022
Accepted April 20, 2022
Published December 25, 2022

licence

Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.


Access this article

Reprint Order Form
Buy this Article
Institutional Subscriptions

Share