Pittner Stefan, Ehrenfellner Bianca, Zissler Angela, Racher Victoria, Trutschnig Wolfgang, Bathke Arne C, Sänger Alexandra M, Stoiber Walter, Steinbacher Peter, Monticelli Fabio C
Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Department of Mathematics, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Int J Legal Med. 2017 Mar;131(2):479-483. doi: 10.1007/s00414-016-1459-4. Epub 2016 Oct 21.
Awareness of postmortem degradation processes in a human body is fundamental to develop methods for forensic time since death estimation (TDE). Currently, applied approaches are all more or less limited to certain postmortem phases, or have restrictions on behalf of circumstances of death. Novel techniques, however, rarely exceed basic research phases due to various reasons. We report the first application of a novel method, based on decay of muscle proteins, in a recent case of murder-suicide, where other TDE methods failed to obtain data. We detected considerably different protein degradation profiles in both individuals involved and compared the data to our presently available database. We obtained statistical evidence for un-simultaneous death and therefore received valuable information to trace the progression of events based on protein degradation. Although we could not sensibly convert the data to respective times of death, this case highlights the potential for future application and elucidates the necessary further steps to develop a viable TDE method.
了解人体死后的降解过程是开发法医死亡时间估计（TDE）方法的基础。目前，应用的方法或多或少都局限于某些死后阶段，或者因死亡情况而受到限制。然而，由于各种原因，新技术很少能超越基础研究阶段。我们报告了一种基于肌肉蛋白质降解的新方法在最近一起谋杀自杀案件中的首次应用，在该案件中其他TDE方法未能获取数据。我们在涉案的两人中检测到了明显不同的蛋白质降解谱，并将数据与我们目前可用的数据库进行了比较。我们获得了两人并非同时死亡的统计证据，因此基于蛋白质降解获得了追踪事件进展的有价值信息。尽管我们无法合理地将数据转换为各自的死亡时间，但该案例凸显了未来应用的潜力，并阐明了开发可行的TDE方法所需的进一步步骤。
