Abstract

ANALYSIS OF SALIVARY COMPONENTS FROM CHEWABLE, ADDICTED AND HABITUAL MATERIALS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Gurleen Kaur* and Sahil Sharma

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Abstract

Saliva is the one of the body fluids and its identification is a key component in criminal investigations. Identification of saliva and its cellular content has proved to be of wide use in crime detection. Spits of chewable, addicted and habitual materials maybe recovered from the crime scene, and for the analysis of saliva from such spits, the first step is to extract the saliva and then subject the same for further analysis. In this study, the saliva from spits of chewable, addicted and habitual materials was extracted and tested for amylase activity along with microscopic examination for buccal epithelial cells. The present study comprises of total of 60 samples (i.e. 20 gutka users, 20 paan users and 20 from chewing gum users), 60 control samples from same individuals in early hours before any use of SLT’s and 30 standard saliva samples i.e. from non-SLT-users. It was observed that saliva was extracted from these spitting samples (both dry and wet) and buccal epithelial cells were also detected upon microscopic examination.

Keywords: Biological fluids, saliva, centrifugation, buccal epithelial cells, forensic science.