Can post-mortem blood be used for DNA profiling after peri-mortem blood transfusion?
Graham EA; Tsokos M; Rutty GN Forensic Pathology Unit, University of Leicester, Robert Kilpatrick Building, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, LE2 7LX, UK. The question of whether blood transfusions can affect DNA profiling is still a contentious issue throughout the forensic community. It is hypothesised that donor leucocytes present in the administered blood will be detected upon examination of recipient blood. In order to resolve this issue, a selection of theoretical experiments were carried out to determine how much donor DNA must be present for its detection in blood components. Five casework examples of material collected from individuals after massive transfusion, including a case of whole organ transplantation, were also investigated. The results indicated that filtration processes used during blood production do not allow the passage of enough donor leucocytes for detection using current forensic profiling techniques. No evidence of secondary profile alleles were found in
