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Forensic DNA Challenges: Replacing Numbers with Names of Fosse Ardeatine’s Victims* |
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| Authors: | Ilenia Pietrangeli BS Vincenzo Caruso MD Liana Veneziano PhD Aldo Spinella PhD Giovanni Arcudi MD Emiliano Giardina PhD Giuseppe Novelli PhD |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Biopathology and Diagnostic Imaging, Centre of Excellence for Genomic Risk Assessment in Multifactorial and Complex Diseases, School of Medicine, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.;2. Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine, National Council Research, Rome, Italy.;3. Direzione Centrale Anticrimine, Servizio di Polizia Scientifica, Rome, Italy.;4. Department of Public Health and Cell Biology, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.;5. Fondazione Livio Patrizi, Rome, Italy. |
| Abstract: | Abstract: The Fosse Ardeatine massacre was a mass execution carried out in Rome on March 24, 1944 by Nazi German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome. The 335 civilians were taken to the “Cave Ardeatine” and they were shot. Only 323 corpses out of 335 have been identified. The aim of this work is the genetic and anthropological analysis of the remains exhumed from grave number 329 of Fosse Ardeatine’s Shrine to assess their identity. So far, such remains have been supposed to belong to MM but mitochondrial analysis excluded a biological relationship to two living maternal relatives. Our analysis indicated that remains recovered in grave number 329 do not belong to MM. This result suggests that genetic analysis of the remains should be also applied to the other 12 unknown corpses to elucidate their identity. |
| Keywords: | forensic science mitochondrial analysis anthropological skeletal remains mass disaster DNA analysis |