Department of Medical Sciences, Graduate School, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, 31538, Republic of Korea.
Department of Biomedical Laboratory Science, College of Medical Sciences, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, 31538, Republic of Korea.
Int J Legal Med. 2023 Jul;137(4):1245-1252. doi: 10.1007/s00414-023-02992-5. Epub 2023 Mar 27.
Drowning is a common cause of accidental death worldwide, and it continues to be a serious public health problem. However, diagnosing drowning is a challenging task in forensic investigation because it is difficult to prove actual drowning and other submerged deaths with the autopsy techniques that are currently in use. Here, we show biomarkers that may be helpful for the diagnosis of drowning. We divided the experimental animals into four groups (drowning, postmortem submersion, hypoxia, and control) to evaluate the expression patterns of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2). On gene expression analysis, only ERK2 was found to be significantly increased in the drowning groups compared to the other cases. In the immunoblot analysis, phosphorylated ERK2 (p-ERK2) was found to be upregulated in the drowning groups. Immunohistochemical staining also showed that p-ERK in alveolar cells revealed a granular pattern in the drowning groups. However, the expression pattern of ERK2 over time after drowning differed between the freshwater and seawater drowning groups. Taken together, these results indicate that ERK2 may be useful for distinguishing between drowning and postmortem submersion if the postmortem interval (PMI) of drowning is short. Conversely, if the PMI is long from the time that death occurs until the discovery of dead bodies, it is possibly more helpful for identifying between freshwater and seawater drowning.
溺水是全世界导致意外死亡的一个常见原因，且它仍是一个严重的公共卫生问题。然而，在法医调查中，溺水的诊断是一个具有挑战性的任务，因为很难用目前使用的尸检技术来证明实际的溺水和其他淹没性死亡。在这里，我们展示了一些可能有助于溺水诊断的生物标志物。我们将实验动物分为溺水组、死后浸泡组、缺氧组和对照组四组，以评估细胞外信号调节激酶 1/2（ERK1/2）的表达模式。在基因表达分析中，只有 ERK2 在溺水组中与其他情况相比明显增加。在免疫印迹分析中，发现溺水组中磷酸化 ERK2（p-ERK2）上调。免疫组织化学染色也表明，溺水组肺泡细胞中的 p-ERK 呈颗粒状。然而，溺水后 ERK2 的表达模式随时间推移在淡水和海水溺水组之间存在差异。总之，如果溺水后的尸检间隔（PMI）较短，ERK2 可能有助于区分溺水和死后浸泡；相反，如果从死亡发生到发现尸体的 PMI 较长，则可能更有助于识别淡水和海水溺水。
