Most crimes committed are against property (theft, robbery) and against the person (bodily harm, sexual violence, murder), but very often the perpetrators are not punished, since traces with analyzable biological material that could identify them cannot be found. In Italy in the year 2000, 86.95% of crimes remained unpunished, a percentage that increases to 96.12% in the case of theft (1). Apart from the few cases in which crimes are planned and precautions are taken to prevent leaving any biological traces at the scene, in most crimes of this type, i.e., theft, robbery, bodily harm, etc., criminals do not wear gloves or other devices, and fingerprints are the only evidence available. The literature contains preliminary studies or case histories on the possibility of recovering DNA from fingerprints left on the skin or on rope, cord, wire, etc., used for strangling, on gloves, knives, solid parts of cars and other objects, and on the interference by substances used to highlight fingerprints during later genetic analysis (2,3). These works report isolated experiments dictated by the need to resolve definite cases. Systematic studies of various factors influencing the success of analysis, such as recovery techniques, interference by contaminants, i.e., latent fingerprint enhancers, and amplification protocols of low-copynumber (LCN) DNA usually recovered from fingerprints, are in progress (4-9). Systematic studies of the influence of various modes of contact and type of substrate in the success of PCR analysis have not been exhaustively carried out. Lastly, the relevance of contamination by different subjects due to secondary and tertiary transfers affecting the robustness of results and the usability of analytical results in court must all be considered more deeply. The same origin of the DNA found in these skin contact traces and the influences of individual and exogenous factors in the number of cells left with the fingerprint still remain unclear. Therefore, the use of this substrate for genetic identification is a subject of passionate debate in the forensic community, and further contributions are still necessary to highlight the advantages, difficulties and limitations of DNA analysis from fingerprints. This study was carried out with the aims of investigating the amount of DNA recovered from various substrates and the influence on it of individual and exogenous factors, as well as the suitability of DNA recovered from fingerprints for personal identification by DNA microsatellites. The importance of contamination by exogenous DNA transfer and the stochastic effects on analysis from sampling minimal amounts of DNA recovered from fingerprints were also considered. Materials and Methods Collection of Samples The fingerprints from eleven persons working in the laboratory were applied to the following clean substrates: glass, metal (alloy metallic surfaces), and wood (cortex of hard wood). Experiments were carried out without washing the hands and immediately after

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Background Preliminary data suggested that fat embolism could explain the importance of visceral obesity as a critical determinant of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Methods We performed a comprehensive histomorphologic analysis of autoptic visceral adipose tissue (VAT), lungs and livers of 19 subjects with COVID-19 (COVID-19+), and 23 people without COVID-19 (controls). Human adipocytes (hMADS) infected with SARS-CoV-2 were also studied. Results Although there were no between-group differences in body-mass-index and adipocytes size, a higher prevalence of CD68+ macrophages among COVID-19+ VAT was detected ( p = 0.005) and accompanied by crown-like structures presence, signs of adipocytes stress and death. Consistently, human adipocytes were successfully infected by SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and displayed lower cell viability. Being VAT inflammation associated with lipids spill-over from dead adipocytes, we studied lipids distribution by ORO. Lipids were observed within lungs and livers interstitial spaces, macrophages, endothelial cells, and vessels lumen, features suggestive of fat embolism syndrome, more prevalent among COVID-19+ ( p < 0.001). Notably, signs of fat embolism were more prevalent among people with obesity ( p = 0.03) independently of COVID-19 diagnosis, suggesting that such condition may be an obesity complication exacerbated by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Importantly, all infected subjects’ lungs presented lipids-rich (ORO+) hyaline membranes, formations associated with COVID-19-related pneumonia, present only in one control patient with non-COVID-19-related pneumonia. Importantly, transition aspects between embolic fat and hyaline membranes were also observed. Conclusions This study confirms the lung fat embolism in COVID-19+ patients and describes for the first time novel COVID-19-related features possibly underlying the unfavorable prognosis in people with COVID-19 and obesity.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a multifactorial disease determined by a combination of inherited and acquired factors. Inherited factors include mutations in the genes coding for coagulation factors, some of which seem to exert a differential influence on the risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). In post-mortem studies of subjects who have died from pulmonary embolism (PE), the analysis of the factors that may have augmented the VTE risk is often limited to acquired factors. This is due to the complexity-and sometimes the unfeasibility-of analyzing genetic factors and to insufficient knowledge of their individual roles in PE development. The present study used formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue to investigate a panel of 12 polymorphisms-the largest ever studied-that affect the VTE risk. Tissue samples came from post-mortem examinations performed by the specialists of the Section of Legal Medicine of the Department of Pathology of Marche's Polytechnic University, and by the specialists of Health Care District Hospital of Imola, on 44 subjects who died from PE in the period 1997-2014. All individuals were found to have at least one mutation affecting the VTE risk. The present study demonstrates that genetic analysis can be performed post-mortem and the results are useful for forensic investigations, especially from MTHFR C677T and PAI-1 4G/5G polymorphisms. Broader studies using the techniques described herein are needed to determine the relative influence of the individual polymorphisms and their interaction in PE deaths.