Leveraging mRNA cMH and machine learning for the deconvolution of mixed body fluid stains in East Asian populations.

A targeted RNA sequencing panel with 48 cMHs achieves near-perfect discrimination power (up to 0.99999999) for five body fluids in East Asian populations.

• Why it matters: Deconvoluting multi-component body fluid mixtures remains a major challenge due to limited polymorphisms and population specificity of existing markers, hindering forensic identification.
• What they did: Researchers developed a panel of 36 genes containing 48 cMHs and five non-cMH genes, then used machine learning with in silico mixing to accurately classify single-source and mixed body fluids.
• The result: The panel demonstrated high accuracy in tissue source identification and donor attribution, enabling robust analysis of complex body fluid mixtures in East Asian forensic contexts.