Technical Note: Validating sonication as a DNA extraction method for use with carrion flies

Carrion-feeding Diptera, mainly from the families Calliphoridae (blow flies) and Sarcophagidae (flesh flies), are increasingly important in medico-legal death investigations as a means to determine the postmortem interval estimation (PMI; [1]). Investigations of carrion-feeding Diptera are not only relevant for human decedents [2], but also for the illegal use of natural resources [3], and cases of animal or human neglect [4,5]. With the increased focus on these flies, there is an increased need to identify the (mainly) immature larval specimens that are recovered from bodies.
Source: Forensic Science International - Category: Forensic Medicine Authors: Tags: Technical Note Source Type: research