Isolation, identification, and time course of human DNA typing from bed bugs, Cimex lectularius

Insects as vectors of DNA in a forensic context

“…Taking advantage of the advances in DNA analysis techniques, the discipline of forensic entomology has extended to include the investigation of insects as vectors of human and mammalian DNA. To date, human and mammalian DNA has been recovered from various life stages of a number of insect species, including the adults of mosquitoes (Ansell et al, ; Chow‐Shaffer, Sina, Hawley, De Benedictis, & Scott, ; Coulson, Curtis, Ready, Hill, & Smith, ; Curic, Hercog, Vrselja, & Wagner, ; Ibrahim, Alrakan, Alaifan, Al‐Mekhlafi, & Kassab, ; Kent & Norris, ; Kreike & Kampfer, ; Mehus & Vaughan, ; Mukabana et al, ; Odongo & Irungu, ; Oshaghi et al, ; Rabelo et al, ; Reeves, Holderman, Gillett‐Kaufman, Kawahara, & Kaufman, ; Sato, Furuya, Harada, & Suguri, ; Soremekun et al, ; Spitaleri, Romano, Di Luise, Ginestra, & Saravo, ; Vieira, Carvalho, & Silva, ), flies (Boakye, Tang, Truc, Merriweather, & Unnasch, ; Kester, Toothman, Brown, Street IV, & Cruz, ; Powers, van Oorschot, & Durdle, ), bed bugs (Raffaele, McCarthy, Raab, & Vaidyanathan, ; Schal et al, ; Szalanski et al, ), kissing bugs (Pizarro & Stevens, ), human body lice (Davey, Casey, Burgess, & Cable, ; Mumcuoglu, Gallili, Reshef, Brauner, & Grant, ), human head lice (Mumcuoglu et al, ), human pubic lice (Lord et al, ; Replogle, Lord, Budowle, Meinking, & Taplin, ), cockroaches (Kester et al, ), crickets (Kester et al, ), sandflies (Maleki‐Ravasan et al, ), and ticks (Tobolewski, Kaliszewski, Colwell, & Oliver, ); blowfly maggots (Boakye et al, ; Chavez‐Brones et al, ; Clery, ; Di Luise, Magni, Staiti, Spitaleri, & Romano, ; Kondakci, Bulbul, Shahzad, Polat, & Cakan, ; Li et al, ; Linville, Hayes, & Wells, ; Njau, Muge, Kinyanjui, Omwandho, & Mukwana, ; Powers et al, ; Wells et al, ; Zehner, Amendt, & Krettek, ); blowfly pupae (Carvalho, Dadour, Groth, & Harvey, ; Powers et al, ); and the empty...…”

“…Some researchers have achieved this by cutting an incision into the abdomen of the insect to allow it to leak into the sample (Lord et al, ; Pilli et al, ). Other researchers homogenized or crushed the bed bugs and lice prior to DNA extraction (Mumcuoglu et al, ; Raffaele et al, ; Replogle et al, ; Schal et al, ). Intact mosquitoes, or mosquito abdomens (used to maximize DNA concentration), are routinely squashed onto filter paper or tissue (Ansell et al, ; Chow‐Shaffer et al, ; Kreike & Kampfer, ), or directly into tubes (Ibrahim et al, ; Mehus & Vaughan, ; Oshaghi et al, ).…”

“…Compared to some other insects, the size of a blood meal consumed by a bed bug is relatively large (Daba, Daba, Shehata, & El Sawaf, ; Ogunrinade, ; Sierras & Schal, ). It must be noted that while bed bugs could be useful in linking a person to a location, their propensity to feed on only one host per meal means there is only a small chance of the gut contents of a bed bug linking a person to another person (Raffaele et al, ; Schal et al, ).…”

“…Haematophagous insects are those which preferentially feed on blood. Human and mammalian DNA has been isolated from the digestive tracts of mosquitoes (Ansell et al, ; Chow‐Shaffer et al, ; Curic et al, ; Ibrahim et al, ; Kent & Norris, ; Kreike & Kampfer, ; Mehus & Vaughan, ; Mukabana et al, ; Odongo & Irungu, ; Oshaghi et al, ; Rabelo et al, ; Reeves et al, ; Sato et al, ; Soremekun et al, ; Spitaleri et al, ; Vieira et al, ), sandflies (Maleki‐Ravasan et al, ), tsetse flies (Boakye et al, ), bed bugs(Raffaele et al, ; Schal et al, ; Szalanski et al, ), and blackflies (Boakye et al, ) after the insects have consumed human and mammalian blood (Table ). Several of these studies have also investigated the temporal effects on amplification and profiling success and reported decreasing amplification success the greater the time since feeding, regardless of whether nDNA or mtDNA was profiled (Chow‐Shaffer et al, ; Curic et al, ; Ibrahim et al, ; Mukabana et al, ; Oshaghi et al, ).…”

“…Bed bugs are insects which feed on blood at all life stages (Schal et al, ), and have a propensity to aggregate close to sleeping or resting areas (Booth et al, ). In lower income housing, bed bugs have been observed at a population density of hundreds per square meter (Raffaele et al, ).…”