"An Overview of mtDNA Analysis for Age-at-Death Estimation in Forensic Sciences" in "Mechanisms Linking Aging, Diseases and Biological Age Estimation"

Some studies were developed toward aging research and some were conducted to improve the techniques for forensic age estimation. Throughout these two directions, these lines of inquiry added evidence of the accumulation of these mutations with the aging process, leading to an increase of knowledge in this field. In a forensic scenario, bones and teeth are often preserved long after all other tissues have disappeared. In adults there are several techniques to estimate the age based on a physiological degeneration of skeletal and dental structures (Wittwer-Backofen et al. 2014). However, many endogenous and exogenous factors, pathological conditions and fragmentary remains influence this relationship. For this reason forensic scientists are currently searching for alternative and quantifiable methodologies for age estimation based on the natural process of aging (Speller et al. 2012, C. Zapico and Ubelaker 2013), for example, tooth-cementum annulations. In this context, the increasing research and knowledge concerning the mutations of mtDNA in different tissues - especially bones and teeth - and their demonstrated relation with age may have an important role for age-at-death estimation in forensic investigations, especially whenever the specific context and the remains available do not consent to apply other traditional identification methodologies.