Genes and crimes

RIA News 

Nikolay Yankovsky, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the N.I.Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The bodies of the victims were secretly taken out of the city and dumped into pits. In Soviet times, the Ipatievsky house, in which the royal family was shot, was demolished so as not to inspire "various kinds of propaganda campaigns around the Romanov royal family." The burial place remained unknown for many years.

During the forensic investigation, it was found that the remains of members of the family of Nicholas II Romanov and persons from his entourage may be in the burial.

Experts restored the appearance of the victims from the skulls. The sculptural portraits corresponded to photographs of Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their three daughters. The portraits of the others found in the burial corresponded to those who accompanied the imperial family to Yekaterinburg – Evgeny Botkin, the life physician of the royal family and the son of the famous doctor Sergei Petrovich Botkin, the emperor's valet Colonel Aloysius Troup, the Empress's maid Anna Demidova and the cook Ivan Kharitonov. Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters were absent from the burial. The half-burnt remains of a boy and a girl were found in 2007 70 meters from the first grave. The investigation was resumed.

Even during the first investigation, in the 1990s, a genetic examination showed that there was a family in the burial - a mother, a father and three daughters. For them, kinship with representatives of the royal houses of Europe was shown both on the part of Nicholas II and on the part of Empress Alexandra. However, the results of the examination did not convince everyone. This is partly due to the limited methods of genetic analysis available in the 90s.

But the key to identification was genetic analysis. DNA identification of the remains found on the Koptyakovskaya road leaves no doubt – these are Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna and their five children.

The most important evidence was the coincidence of DNA features from the alleged remains of Nicholas II and DNA from his bloodstains on a shirt stored in the Hermitage. This proof was obtained by the famous Russian geneticist Evgeny Rogaev. He conducted an examination on the fact of the discovery of the second burial in 2007.

In 1891, during a trip to Japan, Nicholas, at that time still the heir to the throne, was attacked – a fanatic samurai hit him on the head with a saber. Nikolai dodged the blow, and the blow fell in passing. The blood-soaked shirt was kept in the family as a relic, and then ended up in the Hermitage. Evgeny Rogaev, who conducted the examination after the discovery of the second burial, ran wet cotton swabs over the stains on different parts of the shirt and then checked whether there was DNA in the smears obtained. The study was conducted very carefully – the first flushes from the stains were not used, as they could be contaminated with traces of strangers who touched the shirt for many years of its museum life. Now it was necessary to compare the DNA from the bloodstain, which definitely belonged to Nicholas II, and the DNA from his supposed remains in the Yekaterinburg burial.

It is easy to imagine how to identify a person by the description of appearance – height, eye color, special signs, everything should match. DNA identification follows the same principle, only the features of the "genetic text" written in DNA act as signs. Our hereditary traits are encoded in this text by the genetic alphabet – special molecules sewn into the longest threads. Rather long pieces of text or combinations of letters from special areas known to geneticists are unique and can only be found in one person. It is by such combinations that criminologists evaluate "he is not he". They compare the "records" in special sections of DNA extracted from traces at the crime scene with what is "recorded" in the same DNA sections of the suspect. If there is at least one difference, then "not him".

Professor Rogaev conducted a study of not only the sites used by criminologists for routine identification. He also analyzed those sections of genetic texts that are inherited only from one of the parents. These are mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), obtained from the mother, and the Y chromosome, which determines the male sex and is obtained from the father. All the "records" in the DNA from the bloodstains on the shirt completely coincided with what was found in the DNA of the alleged remains of Nicholas II.

Pavel Ivanov, now the head of the Specialized Center for Molecular Genetic Examinations of the Russian Center for Forensic Medical Examination of the Ministry of Health of Russia, showed by DNA that in the first burial (at that time the only known one) there is a family of a father, mother and three daughters. In the father, the alleged Nicholas II, mtDNA has a peculiarity. He had not one "genetic text" in mtDNA, as is usually the case, but two. These texts differed from each other by only one "genetic letter". Maria Feodorovna, the mother of Nicholas II (or, perhaps, her mother) had a mutation – the replacement of one letter with another. This mutation is not externally noticeable and does not affect health. It can only be seen by geneticists when they "read" the DNA.

Maria Fyodorovna gave her son both options – both the old option and the new, mutant one. One of these options (old) It was found in the relatives of Nicholas II on the maternal side – the Duke of Fife and Countess Sheremetyevo-Sefiri. Now, if both options were found in them, then everyone would say "Yes, the relationship is confirmed."

It is now known that when mutations appear in mtDNA, two variants of "genetic texts" coexist for some time, and after 2-3 generations one of the variants is lost. At the same time, an old variant may be lost in one line of descendants, and a new, mutant one in another. But in the 90s, this was not yet known. In any case, additional evidence was needed. And such evidence was obtained.

Pavel Ivanov managed to obtain the DNA of his brother Nicholas II, Grand Duke George Alexandrovich, buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The autopsy of the burial was coordinated with the Government of the Russian Federation, was carried out in the presence of representatives of the church and was approved by Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. George's mtDNA was represented by the same two variants as Nikolai's. And the same two variants were discovered by Evgeny Rogaev in mtDNA from blood stains on a museum shirt. In addition, he examined the DNA of the descendants of the sisters of Nicholas II. As expected, the mtDNA versions were divided among the descendants, and both were found. The son of Grand Duchess Olga was found to have an "old", non-mutant variant of mtDNA, and the great-granddaughter of another sister, Xenia, turned out to have a mutant variant, and the "old" was absent. Exhaustive proof.

The evidence of maternal kinship with representatives of the house of royal houses already received for Nicholas II was very weighty. But the identification of the remains of the royal family is a unique matter that has attracted the attention of the whole world, and no evidence can be superfluous here.

Kinship ties were also investigated in the male line. To do this, an analysis of the Y chromosome is carried out, which is inherited from father to son and determines the male sex. The boy from the second burial (Alexey) corresponded to the father of the family from the first (Nicholas II). Their relationship with the Romanov line was established when compared with the male line descendants of Nicholas I, the great-grandfather of Nicholas II. Five representatives of the Romanov family agreed to participate in the study and passed scrapings from the cheek for DNA analysis. They all had the same Y chromosome as the father and son from the burial. Now it was already possible to say with confidence that the family of the last Russian emperor Nicholas was found near Yekaterinburg.

She inherited her mtDNA from her. During the first investigation, Pavel Ivanov compared the mtDNA site of Empress Alexandra with the DNA of her sister's grandson, Prince Philip. The DNA from the remains was badly destroyed, and only short pieces were able to be read at that time. The coincidence was complete, but what if it was accidental? After all, there could be differences in the unread part of the molecule. Over the following years, science has stepped far forward, and during the second investigation, Evgeny Rogaev read the mtDNA molecules of all members of the royal family in full. Just as in the first examination, he had to compare the DNA from the remains with the DNA of relatives. New methods allowed him to work with small amounts of DNA. Now it was possible to take not royal blood, but only a scrape from the inner surface of the cheek. The descendants of Princess Victoria of Hesse-Darmstadt, the sister of Empress Alexandra, and their aunt Princess Beatrice, provided samples for analysis. All the features of mtDNA both on the sister's side and on the aunt's side completely coincided with the Yekaterinburg remains identified in the mother and children.

But maybe the "royal" features of DNA are not uncommon? Maybe the same are common for the population of Russia, and the family of a local merchant or some other local resident is buried near Yekaterinburg? At the first examination, it was impossible to answer such a question – the population of the Russian regions was not surveyed. But by 2007, such information had already been accumulated. There were no matches with the "royal" DNA among the residents of Russia or in other countries. This means that relatives of the princesses – Empress Alexandra and her children - were really buried near Yekaterinburg.

DNA analysis allows you to identify the relationship, but does not name names. Here anthropologists came to the rescue. In the first burial were Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia, in the second, together with Alexey – Maria.

When a two-month-old baby began life-threatening bleeding, it became clear that he was dangerously ill. Hemophilia is a hereditary disease in which blood clotting is impaired. For the life of the prince had to fear all the time. Now they know how to treat this disease, but at the beginning of the twentieth century it was only possible to alleviate the sufferings of the patient a little.

Both Tsarina Alexandra's own uncle, the Duke of Albany, and her brother Frederick, who died of internal bleeding at the age of two, were ill with hemophilia. Queen Victoria rewarded her descendants with the disease. Her ancestors had no cases of hemophilia. Probably, the mutation originated in one of her parents. Women carriers of the mutation did not suffer from hemophilia, but passed it on to their sons. Since the middle of the 19th century, 10 princes and dukes of royal blood who suffered from hemophilia have been born in three generations. Among them is Tsarevich Alexei.

Professor Rogaev found a hemophilia mutation in Tsarina Alexandra, her daughter Anastasia and Tsarevich Alexei.

The rescue of the whole family or one of the children was also told in Russia.

But the results of the genetic examination clearly show that all members of the family of Nicholas II were found in the Yekaterinburg burial. The results of the analysis of Russian geneticists coincide with independent studies of the remains, which were conducted in parallel in the UK, USA and Austria.

Now there is no need to say, as at the beginning of the expert research, "the alleged remains of the family of the last Russian emperor." No new scientific discoveries can change this fact. In 1998, Emperor Nicholas II Romanov, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their three daughters were buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The remains of the heir to the throne Tsarevich Alexei and his sister Maria are waiting to be reunited with them on a shelf in the archive. And the unique genetic methods developed during the analysis of the remains will be included in the arsenal of criminologists, helping to solve crimes.

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10.09.2015