Manetti Alice Chiara, Maiese Aniello, Baronti Arianna, Mezzetti Eleonora, Frati Paola, Fineschi Vittorio, Turillazzi Emanuela
Department of Surgical, Medical and Molecular Pathology and Critical Care Medicine, Section of Legal Medicine, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
Department of Anatomical, Histological, Forensic and Orthopedic Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, 00186 Rome, Italy.
Biomedicines. 2021 Nov 20;9(11):1731. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines9111731.
Wound vitality demonstration is one of the most challenging fields in forensic pathology. In recent years, researchers focused on the application of histological and immunohistochemical staining in this sphere of study. It is based on the detection of inflammation, red cell infiltration, and tissue alterations at the histological examination, all of which are supposedly present in antemortem rather than post-mortem wounds. Nevertheless, some doubts about the reliability of those markers have arisen. Furthermore, the lack of a standardized protocol and the operator dependency of this approach make the proper interpretation of its results difficult. Moreover, a differential miRNAs expression has been demonstrated in antemortem and post-mortem wounds. Herein, a systematic review concerning the current knowledge about the use of miRNAs in lesion vitality evaluation is carried out, to encourage researchers to deepen this peculiar study area. A compendium about the potential miRNAs that may be further investigated as vitality markers is also provided. The aim is to collect all available data about this topic to direct further studies on this field and highlight the future applications of miRNAs in forensic pathology. We found 20 articles and a total of 51 miRNAs that are involved in inflammation and wound healing. Further studies are certainly needed to deepen the role of miRNAs in inflammatory processes in lesioned skin and to evaluate their reliability in distinguishing between antemortem and post-mortem lesions.
伤口活力鉴定是法医病理学中最具挑战性的领域之一。近年来，研究人员专注于组织学和免疫组织化学染色在这一研究领域的应用。它基于组织学检查中对炎症、红细胞浸润和组织改变的检测，所有这些在生前伤口中应该存在，而不是死后伤口。然而，人们对这些标志物的可靠性产生了一些怀疑。此外，缺乏标准化方案以及该方法对操作者的依赖性使得对其结果的正确解读变得困难。此外，已证实在生前和死后伤口中存在微小RNA（miRNA）表达差异。在此，对当前关于miRNA在损伤活力评估中的应用的知识进行系统综述，以鼓励研究人员深入研究这一特殊领域。还提供了一份关于可能作为活力标志物进一步研究的潜在miRNA的纲要。目的是收集关于该主题的所有可用数据，以指导该领域的进一步研究，并突出miRNA在法医病理学中的未来应用。我们发现了20篇文章，共51种参与炎症和伤口愈合的miRNA。当然需要进一步研究来深入了解miRNA在受损皮肤炎症过程中的作用，并评估它们在区分生前和死后损伤方面的可靠性。
