Zhang Heng, Hu Yikai, Wang Hui, Tian Lu, Li Wencan, Han Liujun, Xu Hongmei, Ma Jianlong, Ma Kaijun, Xiao Bi, Chen Long
Department of Forensic Science, School of Basic Medical Science, Fudan University Shanghai, China.
Pudong Branch, Shanghai Public Security Bureau Shanghai, China.
Am J Transl Res. 2019 Jul 15;11(7):4568-4583. eCollection 2019.
The certification of death due to mechanical asphyxia has been a complex problem in some cases. The use of protein expression to identify mechanical asphyxia death has recently attracted attention. Asphyxia creates an extremely hypoxic environment for cells, which should reactivate the mitochondria in the cells. Cyto c and AIF, located in the mitochondria, are transferred to the cytoplasm under hypoxia to trigger the apoptotic process. Based this phenomenon, we designed the animal asphyxia model and cell hypoxia model to examine whether Cyto c and AIF are expressed in the cytoplasm, and we used human samples to verify the results. We found that the two proteins were detectably expressed in the cytoplasm of mechanical asphyxia groups and were hardly detected in the cytoplasm of other groups. This is a promising finding that may shed light on the precise mechanisms associated with mechanical asphyxia.
在某些情况下，机械性窒息所致死亡的鉴定一直是个复杂的问题。利用蛋白质表达来识别机械性窒息死亡最近受到了关注。窒息为细胞创造了极端缺氧的环境，这会使细胞内的线粒体重新激活。位于线粒体内的细胞色素c（Cyto c）和凋亡诱导因子（AIF）在缺氧状态下会转移到细胞质中，从而触发凋亡过程。基于这一现象，我们设计了动物窒息模型和细胞缺氧模型，以检测Cyto c和AIF是否在细胞质中表达，并用人的样本验证结果。我们发现，这两种蛋白质在机械性窒息组的细胞质中可检测到表达，而在其他组的细胞质中几乎检测不到。这是一个很有前景的发现，可能会揭示与机械性窒息相关的精确机制。
