Dental DNA Mutations Occurring after Death: A Novel Method for Post-Mortem Interval (PMI) Estimation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method using DNA mutations in dental pulp to estimate time since death, which could improve forensic investigations beyond the first week after death.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that post-mortem DNA mutations in dental pulp can be used to estimate PMI and that these mutations occur after death.

Findings

1754 mutations were identified in 56 genes, with over 700 mutations having a prevalence above 5%.

67 somatic mutations in 29 genes showed patterns associated with specific PMI/ADD ranges.

Environmental factors like temperature and humidity may influence DNA degeneration rates in dental pulp.

Abstract

Post-mortem interval (PMI) estimation remains one of the major challenges in forensic practice, especially for late PMIs beyond 7–10 days after the death of the subject. In 2022, an innovative method to investigate the occurrence of mutations induced by the death of a subject in the DNA of post-mortem dental pulps at different PMIs was developed, applying a next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis. The present study aims to apply the same method of analysis to a small sample of teeth belonging to the same subject and analyzed at different PMIs/accumulated degree days (ADDs), and of teeth extracted from different subjects but analyzed at the same PMI/ADD to verify the repeatability of the results obtained in relation to the time elapsed since death. A total of 10 teeth were collected from 6 patients (3 males and 3 females) with PMI varying from 8 to 35 days, and ADD from 157.4 to 753.8. We found 1754 mutations in 56 genes, with more than 700 mutations having a prevalence > 5% and more than 300 variants considered of interest for the purposes of the study. Mutations that were not present at lower PMIs but manifested in later PMIs in pulps belonging to the same subject demonstrate that they can only have been acquired by the subject after death and according to the time elapsed since death. In total, 67 somatic mutations in 29 out of the 56 genes of the used panel occurred in a fashion that allows an association with specific PMI/ADD ranges (within 8 days, between 17 and 28, and beyond 30 days after death). The results suggest that temperature and humidity could influence the rate of DNA degeneration in dental pulps, thus PMI should be estimated in ADD more than days. The preliminary validation supports the hypothesis that the innovative method could be a useful tool for estimating the post-mortem interval even beyond the first week after death, but further analyses are needed to customize a specific genetic panel for forensic investigations and verify the influence of degenerative processes of soft tissues surrounding dental elements on DNA degeneration of pulps.