Abstract
Wheat flour is a common white powder material and sometimes encountered in criminal investigations. This report describes the application of DNA analysis to wheat flour samples for the identification and discrimination of white powder materials. Species identification of commercially available wheat flour samples was carried out by the partial sequence of rbcL, which is used as markers for phylogenetic and taxonomic studies. These wheat flour samples were discriminated by short tandem repeat (STR) analysis and sequence-specific amplification polymorphism (S-SAP) analysis. The partial sequences of rbcL were identical among all flour samples. And they were also identical to the rbcL sequences of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) submitted to DNA data base. Furthermore, flour samples had characteristic patterns in both the STR and S-SAP analyses. These results suggested that identification of the wheat flour samples was possible by rbcL sequences and both the STR and S-SAP analyses were useful for the discrimination among wheat flour samples. It is considered that DNA analysis of wheat flour can contribute to criminal investigation.
