NCJ Number
223882
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 53 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2008 Pages: 910-916
Date Published
July 2008
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Given that aspartic acid racemization has been found to be an accurate measure of age at death, this study examined the practicality of using acid etching of the tooth surface in order to extract amino acids from the enamel for racemization analysis.
Abstract
Findings indicate that the acid etching of tooth enamel is a promising noninvasive method for extracting proteins for amino racemization in estimating age. One of the key problems with the use of surface sampling, however, is the potential for contamination of the amino acids extracted with foreign proteins. The results of the contamination experiment indicate that limited acid etching alone can remove much of the contaminating protein on the tooth surface, but even extensive etching cannot remove all contamination. For the purposes of forensic deontology, this study suggests that enamel could provide a useful substrate for aspartic acid racemization analyses if sampling is conducted away from the surface of the enamel. This could also indicate that the potential for the application of this method in earlier samples, including those from archaeological contexts, may be greater than previously assumed. Two separate experiments (contamination and serial etching experiments) were conducted in order to determine the ability of a combination of bleaching and acid etching to extract uncontaminated amino acids from dental enamel for racemization analysis. The serial etching experiment investigated the potential for the method to detect contamination within the tooth itself. The contamination experiment determined the ability of this method to remove contaminants acquired during the burial period. A third experiment (micro-computed tomography) visualized and measured the destructiveness of the acid etching technique. 2 tables, 8 figures, and 19 references