Estimation of age using aspartic acid racemisation in human dentin in Indian population.

AIM The quest to identify an accurate method of age estimation, had lead to the evaluation of aspartic acid racemisation in hard tissues of the human remains using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Our study is aimed at the applicability of the racemisation technique to use dentin as the sample to estimate the age in South Indian sub-population. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-six non-carious teeth from living individuals distributed among 6 age groups (6 each), sexes (18 each) and jaws (18 each) were analysed for dextro (d) and levo (l) forms of aspartic acid using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique and their racemisation ratio were calculated for each tooth sample. RESULTS High correlation was obtained between the aspartic acid racemisation rates in dentin and age of the individual with an error limited to ±3 years. Racemisation rates in teeth did not significantly differ between the sexes or jaws. CONCLUSION The d-aspartic acid accumulation in dentin is synchronous with the aging of an individual and can be used as an accurate method of age estimation in our population.