Mosquitoes feed on blood which is a key marker in fo
rensic applications. We
identified the impact of
female
Culex pipiens
age on person identification using Short Ta
ndem Repeats analysis (STRs) via blood
present in their abdomen and established a corre
lation between mosquito age and Red Blood Cells
(RBCs) degradation as indicator about time passed
after blood feeding. Human DNA from adults was
reduced in samples from 0 and 2 days old than 4-10
days old. These samples
failed to supply full STRs
profiles (0 and 2 days old females supplied 11 and 10
sites). Older females supplied all of the 14 STRs.
Temporal count of RBCs from female
s with different ages after mosquito feeding revealed faster
degradation of RBCs in blood drawn from older females
(4-10 days old) than those of younger samples
(0 and 2 days old). Age of mosquito has a
key impact on forensic use of mosquitoes