Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy.
Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Magna Graecia University, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Sep 27;24(19):14627. doi: 10.3390/ijms241914627.
Estimating the time since death ( interval, PMI) represents one of the most important tasks in daily forensic casework. For decades, forensic scientists have investigated changes in body composition, focusing on different physical, chemical, or biological aspects, to discover a reliable method for estimating PMI; nevertheless, all of these attempts remain unsuccessful considering the currently available methodical spectrum characterized by great inaccuracies and limitations. However, recent promising approaches focus on the decomposition of biomolecules. In particular, significant advances have been made in research on the degradation of proteins. In the present study, we investigated early changes (during the first 24 h) in the proteome profile of the pig skeletal muscle looking for new PMI specific biomarkers. By mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics, we were able to identify a total of nine potential PMI biomarkers, whose quantity changed constantly and progressively over time, directly or inversely proportional to the advancement of hours. Our preliminary study underlines the importance of the proteomic approach in the search for a reliable method for PMI determination and highlights the need to characterize a large number of reliable marker proteins useful in forensic practice for PMI estimation.
推断死亡时间（间隔，PMI）是日常法医工作中最重要的任务之一。几十年来，法医学家一直在研究人体成分的变化，重点关注不同的物理、化学或生物学方面，以发现一种可靠的方法来估计 PMI；然而，考虑到目前方法学范围的局限性和巨大的不准确性，所有这些尝试仍然没有成功。然而，最近有前途的方法侧重于生物分子的分解。特别是，在蛋白质降解的研究方面取得了重大进展。在本研究中，我们研究了猪骨骼肌蛋白质组图谱的早期变化（在最初的 24 小时内），寻找新的 PMI 特异性生物标志物。通过基于质谱（MS）的蛋白质组学，我们总共能够鉴定出 9 种潜在的 PMI 生物标志物，其数量随着时间的推移不断变化，直接或间接与时间的推进成正比。我们的初步研究强调了蛋白质组学方法在寻找可靠的 PMI 确定方法中的重要性，并突出了需要对大量可靠的标记蛋白进行特征描述，这些蛋白在法医实践中对 PMI 估计有用。
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