Abstract:
DNA methylation is a major epigenetic modification which commonly occurs at the CpG nucleotide repeats along the whole genome, and it is also responsible for organ development and cellular differentiation. Generally, each CpG site possesses a different methylation status in different tissues. Many researches had been done on the CpG nucleotide to find the specific marker to identify each organ of the human body, since being able to use the CpG methylation profile to identify the tissues at the crime scene could be a break though for the case. Another reason for using the CpG methylation is because it is very stable and able to work with degraded samples. This study will be focused on identifying brain tissue within the sample that indicated the death of the owner. By scanning 39 experimental methylation array databases 27,578 CpG positions, we found that the cg03096975 position of EML2 was strikingly methylated in the brain tissue. The result was validated using by the COBRA technique, comparing the CpG methylation profile between brain tissue and other 17 organs. The CpG site was methylated in the brain tissue, while non-methylated in the other 17 tissues. The results clearly demonstrated that this marker can distinguish brain tissue from other organs with 100% accuracy, high sensitivity, and fast. This is the first application used CpG methylation (cg03096965 of EML2) to identify brain tissue. The COBRA technique had also been tested with different condition of brain tissue compatible to the tissue left at the crime scene, and it was still able to identify the sample. In conclusion, the cg03096965 methylation of EML2 gene is very specificity and sensitivity to the brain tissue which can be very useful in forensic science