Determination of AB0 Blood Group System from Degraded Blood Stains onSerological and Molecular Genetic Level

Overview

The AB0 blood group system typing remains one of the basic laboratory tasks in a forensic practice.However, problems arise when the analysed samples are seriously degraded.We took blood samples from six volunteers (three men, three women) and made blood stains onpieces of sterile cotton cloth. Blood stains were incubated at three different temperatures (22 °C,37 °C, 56 °C) for various periods of time (1 day, 1 week, 14 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1year). For blood stains degraded at 22 °C we also analysed the samples after 3.5 hours of incubation.Moreover, we tried to determine the AB0 blood group system after thermal degradation athigh temperature, accurately at 200 °C for 10 min. For the AB0 blood group system typing a PolymeraseChain Reaction method was used to amplify glycosyltransferase gene, when DNA hadbeen isolated from artificially created blood stains, followed by their subsequent artificial thermaldegradation. For serological AB0 typing the mixed agglutination and the Therkelsen methodwere used.The DNA analysis seemed to solve problems with seriously degraded blood stains but we foundout that classical serological methods were even better in some cases.

Key words:
AB0 system – DNA analysis – glycosyltransferase – mixed agglutination – Therkelsenmethod