解决法医学问题的新工具：微生物群落

A new tool for tackling challenges in forensic medicine: microbial community

摘要:

生物痕迹往往成为刑事侦查案件中的突破口，比如在涉及个人识别、嫌疑人追踪或者死亡时间(postmortem interval，PMI)等法医学问题上，生物源性证据往往发挥着至关重要的作用。目前，许多传统的法医学方法仍在沿用，但研究者们试图发现新的法医学工具，以此来弥补传统方法的不足或者为法医学实践增加新的思路和方法。得益于测序技术的发展，研究者们发现机体内外的微生物数量要远远超过细胞的数量，它们在地点溯源、个人识别、死亡时间的推断、生物犯罪及环境保护等方面均有着不小的应用价值。本文对这方面的研究进展进行了介绍。

关键词:法医学;高通量测序;微生物群落;肠道微生物

Abstract:

Biometric traces are regularly utilized as a breakthrough in criminal investigations, such as the forensic challenges concerning personal identification, suspect tracking, or postmortem interval (PMI), and biogenic evidence is frequently used. In spite of the numerous conventional techniques in forensic medicine, scholars have been sparing no efforts to create new instruments in light of the limitations of available methods or for the benefit of practitioners in this field. Thanks to the advancement of sequencing technology, it has been found that the microorganisms inside and outside the body far outnumber the cells, which have high value in location tracing, personal identification, inference of PMI, biocrime, and environmental protection. In this paper, the research progress in this area is described.

Key words:forensic medicine;high-throughput sequencing;microbial community;gut microbes