Abstract:
The identification of skeletal human remains, severely compromised by putrefaction, or highly deteriorated, is important for legal and humanitarian reasons. There are different tools that can help in the identification process such as anthropological and genetic studies. The success observed during the last decade in genetic analysis of skeletal remains has been possible especially due to the refinements of DNA extraction and posterior analysis techniques. However, despite these progresses, many challenges keep influencing the results of such analysis, mainly the limited amount and the degradation of the DNA recovered from badly preserved samples. By now, there is still no wide-range knowledge about post-mortem kinetics of DNA degradation. Therefore, taphonomy studies can play a key role in the reconstruction of post-mortem transformations that skeletal remains, and consequently DNA, have undergone. Thus, the goal of the present review focuses on the assessment of the literature regarding the possible effect of intrinsic (characteristics of the bone) and extrinsic (environmental) factors on the state of preservation of skeletal remains recovered in a terrestrial environment and their genetic material. The establishment of useful indicators describing the state of the remains is a key factor in order to determine their suitability for posterior biomolecular analysis.
摘要:
骨骼遗骸的鉴定,腐败严重受损,或者严重恶化,出于法律和人道主义原因。有不同的工具可以帮助识别过程,如人类学和遗传研究。在过去十年中,骨骼遗骸的遗传分析取得了成功,尤其是由于DNA提取和后验分析技术的改进。然而,尽管取得了这些进展,许多挑战不断影响这种分析的结果,主要是从保存不良的样品中回收的DNA的数量有限和降解。到现在为止,关于DNA降解的事后动力学仍然没有广泛的知识。因此,taphonomy研究可以在骨骼遗骸的死后转化的重建中发挥关键作用,因此DNA,已经经历了。因此,本综述的目的是评估有关内在(骨骼特征)和外在(环境)因素对陆地环境中恢复的骨骼遗骸及其遗传物质的保存状态的可能影响的文献。建立描述遗骸状态的有用指标是确定其是否适合进行后验生物分子分析的关键因素。