Unusual autopsy, unusual tissue(s) for DNA, but a useful genetic profile: A case of the DNA profiling from the human tissue of challenged provenance

The autopsy of the non-fresh cadaver is characterized by inherent difficulties in that it requires the adoption of genetic and histological investigation techniques to the specific case. The case that the authors present in this paper concerns the corpse of a young woman who had already been autopsied, then treated with 20 % neutral buffered formaldehyde, a preserving agent, to enable its intercontinental transport, and then autopsied again. At the judge's request, a second judicial autopsy was performed in order to verify the cause of death and to carry out genetic investigations. As fresh tissue was not available to perform the genetic analysis, three different tissue matrices were taken: retina, liver, and iliopsoas muscle. The biological matrices taken were chosen as they were considered less likely to be in contact with formaldehyde and therefore probably less prone to artifacts caused by the action of formalin on the DNA structure. All three biological matrices were used to obtain a genetic profile. In particular, the genetic data obtained from the retina was found to be better than the genetic profile obtained from the iliopsoas muscle. In turn, the genetic profile obtained from the iliopsoas muscle was found to be better than the genetic data obtained from the liver sample.