James Woodford in New Scientist:
Sexual partners transfer their distinctive genital microbiome to each other during intercourse, a finding that could have implications for forensic investigations of sexual assault.
Brendan Chapman at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, and his colleagues collected swabs from the genitals of 12 monogamous, heterosexual couples, then used RNA gene sequencing to identify microbial signatures for each participant. The researchers asked the couples to abstain from sex for between two days and two weeks, and took follow-up samples a few hours after intercourse.
“We found that those genetic signatures from the female’s bacteria were detectable in their male partners and vice versa,” says Chapman. This change in a person’s “sexome”, as the team has dubbed it, could prove useful in criminal investigations, he says.
More here.
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