Analysis of amino acids in latent fingerprint residue by capillary electrophoresis‐mass spectrometry

Abstract

The analysis of the chemical composition of fingerprints is important for the development and improvement of existing fingerprint enhancement techniques. This study demonstrates the first analysis of a latent fingerprint sample, using an optimized CE-MS method. In total 12 amino acids were detected in the fingerprint sample. MS/MS fragmentation was used to provide additional identity confirmation, for which eight of the twelve detected amino acids generated confirmatory product ions. Nine amino acids were quantified and their relative abundances were consistent with previous studies with serine and glycine being the most abundant. The successful detection of amino acids from latent fingerprints demonstrates that CE-MS is a potential future technique for further study of such compounds in fingerprint samples.

Fingerprint composition and aging: A literature review

“…The eccrine component of the fingerprint is composed of approximately 98% water, as well as organic and inorganic compounds [16,58], as shown in Table 1. Studies to date have quantified 20 amino acids in fingerprints [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66], as shown in Table 2.…”

Review of the CE‐MS platform as a powerful alternative to conventional couplings in bio‐omics and target‐based applications

“…Currently there are an increasing number of applications using CE-IT-MS that focuses on amino acids, peptides, and proteins [87][88][89][90][91][92][93]. In order to illustrate these applications, these representative papers are now discussed [87][88][89].…”

Determination of Amino Acids in Plasma and Nutritional Supplements by Capillary Electrophoresis with Copper(II) Coordination

“…However, derivatization procedures may be complex and time-consuming, and sometimes the resulting compounds are unstable causing poor precision and accuracy. In recent years, electrochemical (Weng and Jin 2001), electrochemiluminescence (Yu, Xu, and You 2013), indirect detection (Rojano-Delgado et al 2010), and mass spectroscopy (MS) (Atherton et al 2012;Kumar et al 2012) have been used without derivatization. However, some disadvantages exist in these methods.…”