Citation

Dwivedi A, Tripathy D, Bhatnagar T. Indian J. Forensic Med. Pathol. 2021; 14(Special Issue 2): 154-157.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Red Flower Publication)

DOI

10.21088/ijfmp.0974.3383.14221.19

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Plant toxins and poisons are deadly weapons which can kill humans without any bloodshed or violence. These deadly plant weapons in the form of extracts or plant tissue as whole are used by culprits for burglary, rape, and murder. They are also used in many suicide cases. In India, numerous murders, unsolved deaths and crimes have been related to the use of plant toxins. Criminals use them often as they are freely available at virtually no cost. The plant extracts or plant tissues can often be found on the crime site or even on the murderer or suspect. In this project, research has been initiated to study the polymorphism of proteins found in the different poisonous plants in India and identify its forensic importance. The profiling or polymorphism has been done using SDS-Page technique, which shows a series of Protein Bands present in the plant tissue used. This data shows the typical proteins present in the different plants and the polymorphism of plant proteins can be used as a Protein Fingerprinting to identify the toxic plant used to cause harm, death, murder on a crime site. The Protein fingerprint thus obtained can be used as an evidence to identify a particular death with the specific symptoms as well as the toxic plant used in the crime. © 2021, Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Proteins; Plant toxins; Plant poison; Protein profiling; Sds-page