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Predicting recent intercourse is crucial in forensic casework on sexual assaults. In this work, we assessed whether sexual intercourse can be predicted based on the vaginal microbiome and compared it to the gold standard method of semen detection.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Using a prediction model based on microbiome of 3043 women, intercourse was predicted with 71% accuracy in a balanced cross-validation machine learning setting. This prediction model was validated in a longitudinal intervention study and tested on forensic sexual assault cases. The developed predictor could accurately establish intercourse in 82% of the studied cases. Yet, underwear was found to hold an even greater evidential value and replace the more invasive vaginal sampling for semen detection in some cases with an accuracy of 95%. This was substantiated through a retrospective analysis of 207 forensic sexual assault cases.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Taken together, this study revealed that the vaginal microbiome is better at predicting recent sexual intercourse, while the victim\u2019s underwear has a clear value as additional biological trace evidence for semen detection. These findings are particularly useful in cases with delayed reporting and are obtained with less invasive sampling.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1186\/s40168-025-02268-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T04:21:45Z","timestamp":1763612505000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Microbial and seminal traces of sexual intercourse and forensic implications"],"prefix":"10.1186","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Sarah","family":"Ahannach","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Thies","family":"Gehrmann","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Irina","family":"Spacova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Stijn","family":"Wittouck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jana","family":"Hiers","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Peter A.","family":"Bron","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Leonore","family":"Vander Donck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maryse","family":"Cromphout","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Meghna","family":"Swayambhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Natasha","family":"Arora","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Larissa","family":"Schuh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Iris","family":"Tournoy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Inge","family":"Smeers","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Joke","family":"Wuestenbergs","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bram","family":"Bekaert","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ronny","family":"Decorte","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Els","family":"Jehaes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sarah","family":"Lebeer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"2268_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Borumandnia N, Khadembashi N, Tabatabaei M, Alavi Majd H. 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For the Isala dataset, the study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Antwerp University Hospital\/University of Antwerp (B300201942076) on 18 November 2019. For the GeneDoe dataset, the study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Antwerp University Hospital\/University of Antwerp (B3002021000066) on March 23rd, 2021. For the sperm dataset from the the FORmics project at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Switzerland, ethical approval was obtained by CEBES, the Ethics Review Board at the University of Zurich, and received the following identifier 2021-11c. Lastly, for the retrospective descriptive case study, the Local KULeuven ethics committee [mp13636]) approved the study.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics approval and consent to participate"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Consent for publication"}},{"value":"The authors declare no competing interests.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Competing interests"}}],"article-number":"237"}}