Advantages of filtration method for sperm-DNA genotyping in sexual assault cases

Abstract

Differential extraction (DE) is a conventional method to isolate sperms from forensic semen samples (e.g. vaginal swab containing semen) for sperm-DNA genotyping. Subsequent to selective digestion of somatic cells in a mixture sample, sperms are collected and purified as a pellet by repetitive centrifugation based on the specific gravity of sperm heads. However, the centrifugation operation requires a technical proficiency and an extensive time to prevent a loss of sperms from the pellet as much as possible. Therefore, we devised a "filtration method (FM)", in which a vacuum filtration operation based on the size of sperm heads is adapted, instead of DE, for isolation of sperms without any loss in principle. Sperms are collected and purified on a polycarbonate membrane filter. In this study, we have compared results of forensic assays by DE and FM for sperm-DNA genotyping from forensic semen samples. Consequently, FM had advantages of easy operation, timesaving, and high yield of sperms from semen samples compared with DE, although FM had a comparable ability to DE for a purification of sperms from mixture samples. Thus, we present that FM could simply lead to success of sperm-DNA genotyping and has a possibility to supersede DE as a gold-standard method.

Keywords: Differential extraction; Filtration method; Forensic science; Sperm-DNA genotyping.