Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Department of Biosciences, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Int J Legal Med. 2020 Sep;134(5):1775-1782. doi: 10.1007/s00414-020-02355-4. Epub 2020 Jul 7.
In recent years, protein decomposition has become of increasing interest for the use in forensic estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI). Especially skeletal muscle tissue has proven to be a prime target tissue, among other reasons, due to its large abundance in the human body. In this regard, it is important to know whether there are any intra- and intermuscular differences in the behavior of protein degradation. Thus, samples from different locations within several skeletal muscles as well as from cardiac and smooth muscle tissue samples were collected from three autopsy cases with varying degree of decomposition. Samples were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting and compared for protein degradation patterns. Intramuscular variations turned out to be minimal and without major influence for the use of the method. Observed intermuscular differences provide possibilities for future improvement of the precision and temporal application range. The results of this study show the strengths and current limitations of protein degradation-based PMI estimation and provide a deeper understanding of intraindividual postmortem protein degradation processes.
近年来，蛋白质分解在法医死后间隔时间（PMI）估计中的应用越来越受到关注。尤其是骨骼肌组织，由于其在人体中的大量存在，已被证明是主要的靶组织之一。在这方面，了解蛋白质降解的行为是否存在内在和肌肉间的差异非常重要。因此，从三个不同程度分解的尸检案例中收集了来自不同骨骼肌位置以及来自心脏和平滑肌组织样本的样品。通过 SDS-PAGE 和 Western blot 进行分析，并比较蛋白质降解模式。结果表明，肌肉内的变化非常小，对该方法的应用没有重大影响。观察到的肌肉间差异为未来提高精度和时间应用范围提供了可能性。本研究的结果显示了基于蛋白质降解的 PMI 估计的优势和当前限制，并提供了对个体死后蛋白质降解过程的更深入了解。
