Assessing Protein Sequencing in Human Single Hair Shafts of Decreasing Lengths

September 2019 in “ Forensic Science International Genetics ”

Katherine F. M. Jones, Traci L. Carlson, Brian A. Eckenrode, Joseph Donfack

hair keratin nLC-MS/MS peptide sequencing amino acid polymorphism

TLDR Hair keratin proteins can be reliably identified in hair as short as 0.12 cm, with 0.5 to 2 cm being the best length for analysis.

The study assessed the use of hair keratin protein analysis as a forensic tool, demonstrating that nLC-MS/MS analysis could reliably identify hair keratins in samples as small as 0.12 cm. This finding suggested that even with small sample sizes, a significant number of hair keratin proteins could be detected, making peptide sequencing for single amino acid polymorphism identification feasible in forensic contexts. The research concluded that the optimal hair shaft length for analysis was between 0.5 cm and 2 cm.

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Research cited in this study

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research Protein Extraction from Human Anagen Head Hairs 1 Millimeter or Less in Total Length

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