LCMS Analysis of Fingerprints, the Amino Acid Profile of 20 Donors

Abstract

The analysis of amino acids present in fingerprints has been studied several times. In this paper, we report a method for the analysis of amino acids using an fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl chloride-derivatization for LC separation and MS detection. We have obtained good results with regard to the calibration curves and the limit of detection and LOQ for the target compounds. The extraction of the amino acids from the substrates used proved to be very efficient. Analysis of the derivatized amino acids enabled us to obtain full amino acid profiles for 20 donors. The intervariability is as expected rather large, with serine as the most abundant constituent, and when examining the total profile of the amino acids per donor, a characteristic pattern can be observed. Some amino acids were not detected in some donors, or fell out of the range of the calibration curve, where others showed a surprisingly high amount of material in the deposition analyses. Further investigations will have to address the intravariability of the amino acid profiles of the fingerprints from donors. By the development of the analytical method and the application to the analysis of fingerprints, we were able to gain insight in the variability of the constituents of fingerprints between the donors.

Fatty Acid Structure and Degradation Analysis in Fingerprint Residues

“…GC-MS was used in 1999 to identify components of fingerprint residues, including free fatty acids, triglycerides, wax ester, amino acids, glycerol, cholesterol, and squalene [17], followed by several studies combining chromatography, mass spectrometry, and spectroscopic techniques [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Gender determination [21], donor classification [21][22][23][24][25], and aging studies [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] were among the major targets of fingerprint research recently.…”

“…Gender determination [21], donor classification [21][22][23][24][25], and aging studies [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] were among the major targets of fingerprint research recently. Francese et al show in their review article the power of MALDI mass spectrometry for the manifold analyses of fingerprints, even after aging [33].…”

Analysis of urine, oral fluid and fingerprints by liquid extraction surface analysis coupled to high resolution MS and MS/MS – opportunities for forensic and biomedical science

“…This may be useful when a fingerprint is smudged or details of the donor are not contained within the fingerprint database. Many techniques have been proposed for these applications, including spectroscopic techniques [30], which lack the selectivity of mass spectrometry methods; chromatography based approaches [22,29] which require considerable sample preparation and consume at least an entire fingerprint; and vacuum based methods [20][21][22][23][24][25], which have lower sample throughput and have been shown to degrade fingerprint chemistry [31].…”

Collection of amino acids and DNA from fingerprints using hydrogels

“…12,13 For the sweat collection studies large volumes of sweat are required alongside specialist equipment to produce an amino acid profile. In the case of fingerprint analysis there are issues relating to the complex matrix of the fingerprints that limit the amount of amino acids that can be successfully extracted from fingerprints.…”

“…As we have reported earlier, the analysis of L-tryptophan, when extracted from fingerprints, is problematic. 12 It is possible that the radical photoinitiator, used in the gel, attacks the conjugated ring system of L-tryptophan reducing its concentration, making the analysis after gel extraction more complicated. However, it is clear from Fig.…”