Sugie H, Nishikawa T, Funao T
Department of Legal Medicine, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Kanagawa, Japan.
Forensic Sci Int. 1995 Jan 30;71(2):123-30. doi: 10.1016/0379-0738(94)01650-t.
Ante- and post-mortem bloodstains prepared from the blood of volunteers and corpses were analysed for ATP and its related compounds by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that (1) ATP was present in a large amount in antemortem bloodstains but not in postmortem stains, (2) AMP, adenosine, inosine, hypoxanthine, xanthine and uracil either were not detected or were detected in smaller amounts in antemortem than in postmortem bloodstains, and (3) ADP was present in both ante- and post-mortem bloodstains. These differences suggest that quantitation of these compounds may be useful in identifying whether bloodstains are ante- or post-mortem.
