Raman spectroscopy offers great potential for the nondestructive confirmatory identification of body fluids.

Raman spectroscopy was used to compare body fluids commonly found at crime scenes in a nondestructive manner. The dry traces of semen, vaginal fluid, sweat, saliva, and blood were analyzed using confocal Raman microscopy with a 785-nm excitation. The results show that the five fluids can be differentiated from one another by visual comparison of their Raman spectra, and that the laser radiation does not damage the sample. The Raman signature of each body fluid is specific and correlates with the known composition of the fluid. Dry traces of human and canine semen exhibited distinctly different Raman signatures. Overall, this preliminary study demonstrates the great potential of Raman spectroscopy for nondestructive, confirmatory identification of body fluids for forensic purposes.

[1]  K. Booksh,et al.  Monitoring anhydride and acid conversion in supercritical/hydrothermal water by in situ fiber-optic Raman spectroscopy , 1998 .

[2]  Nithin O. Rajan,et al.  Roles of Glycoproteins and Oligosaccharides Found in Human Vaginal Fluid in Bacterial Adherence , 1999, Infection and Immunity.

[3]  Sanford A. Asher,et al.  Ultraviolet resonance Raman characterization of photochemical transients of phenol, tyrosine, and tryptophan , 1986 .

[4]  B. Bulkin,et al.  Chemical Applications of Raman Spectroscopy , 1981 .

[5]  Williams David Mazzella,et al.  Raman spectroscopy of blue gel pen inks. , 2005, Forensic science international.

[6]  M. Morris,et al.  Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy of Lipids on Silver Microprobes , 1998 .

[7]  T. Nakabayashi,et al.  Liquid Structure of Acetic Acid Studied by Raman Spectroscopy and Ab Initio Molecular Orbital Calculations , 1999 .

[8]  H Tashiro,et al.  Excitation wavelength-dependent changes in Raman spectra of whole blood and hemoglobin: comparison of the spectra with 514.5-, 720-, and 1064-nm excitation. , 2001, Journal of biomedical optics.

[9]  C. W. Garner,et al.  Porcine pancreatic lipase. A glycoprotein. , 1972, The Journal of biological chemistry.

[10]  David F Katz,et al.  A review of the physical and chemical properties of human semen and the formulation of a semen simulant. , 2005, Journal of andrology.

[11]  Mohamed Mathlouthi,et al.  Laser-raman spectra of d-fructose in aqueous solution , 1980 .

[12]  T. Spiro,et al.  Tyrosine and tryptophan structure markers in hemoglobin ultraviolet resonance Raman spectra: mode assignments via subunit-specific isotope labeling of recombinant protein. , 1997, Biochemistry.

[13]  Milton Kerker,et al.  Surface-enhanced Raman scattering by citrate on colloidal silver , 1983 .

[14]  D. J. Stufkens,et al.  Raman and infrared studies of homogeneous forms of acid phosphatase from rat liver. , 1984, Biochimica et biophysica acta.

[15]  Colin M. Hodges,et al.  The use of Fourier Transform Raman spectroscopy in the forensic identification of illicit drugs and explosives , 1990 .

[16]  Natalya I. Topilina,et al.  Beta-sheet folding of 11-kDa fibrillogenic polypeptide is completely aggregation driven. , 2007, Biopolymers.

[17]  E. Fischer,et al.  The amino acid composition of alpha-amylase from Aspergillus oryzae. , 1960, The Journal of biological chemistry.

[18]  T. Vo‐Dinh,et al.  Surface-enhanced Raman scattering detection of chemical and biological agents using a portable Raman integrated tunable sensor , 2007 .

[19]  G. Puppels,et al.  Combined in vivo confocal Raman spectroscopy and confocal microscopy of human skin. , 2003, Biophysical journal.

[20]  M. Vert,et al.  Vibrational analysis of poly(L‐lactic acid) , 1995 .

[21]  Chetan Shende,et al.  Analysis of 5-fluorouracil in saliva using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy , 2005 .

[22]  G. Thomas,et al.  Raman spectroscopy of filamentous bacteriophage Ff (fd, M13, f1) incorporating specifically-deuterated alanine and tryptophan side chains. Assignments and structural interpretation. , 1991, Biophysical journal.

[23]  P. McMillan,et al.  Raman spectroscopic studies of hen egg-white lysozyme at high temperatures and pressures , 1990, Journal of protein chemistry.

[24]  N. Yu,et al.  Laser-excited Raman spectroscopy of biomolecules: II. Native ribonuclease and α-chymotrypsin☆☆☆ , 1970 .

[25]  P. Prevelige,et al.  Mechanism of capsid maturation in a double-stranded DNA virus. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[26]  S. Law,et al.  Nucleotide sequence and the encoded amino acids of human serum albumin mRNA. , 1982, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[27]  L. Rey,et al.  Freeze-drying/lyophilization of pharmaceutical and biological products , 2004 .

[28]  T. Spiro,et al.  Resonance Raman spectra of hemoglobin and cytochrome c: inverse polarization and vibronic scattering. , 1972, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[29]  E M Suzuki,et al.  In situ identification and analysis of automotive paint pigments using line segment excitation Raman spectroscopy: I. Inorganic topcoat pigments. , 2001, Journal of forensic sciences.

[30]  C. Rodger,et al.  The in-situ analysis of lipsticks by surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering , 1998 .

[31]  S. Cnattingius,et al.  Association between lactate in vaginal fluid and time to spontaneous onset of labour for women with suspected prelabour rupture of the membranes , 2006, BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology.

[32]  A. Keys,et al.  The Composition of Sweat, with special reference to the Vitamins. , 1943 .

[33]  J. Bonicel,et al.  Porcine pancreatic lipase. Sequence of the first 234 amino acids of the peptide chain. , 1979, European journal of biochemistry.

[34]  D. A. Long,et al.  Raman spectroscopic studies of urea/n‐paraffin clathrates , 1975 .

[35]  M. Pecul,et al.  Vibrational Raman and Raman optical activity spectra of D-lactic acid, D-lactate, and D-glyceraldehyde: Ab initio calculations , 2002 .

[36]  Edward G. Bartick,et al.  Portable Raman Spectroscopy Systems for Field Analysis , 2001 .

[37]  R. Mendelsohn,et al.  Laser-excited Raman spectroscopy of biomolecules. V. Conformational changes associated with the chemical denaturation of lysozyme. , 1974, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[38]  C Roux,et al.  Raman spectroscopy and the forensic analysis of black/grey and blue cotton fibres Part 1: investigation of the effects of varying laser wavelength. , 2005, Forensic science international.