Korean J Leg Med.  2012 Nov;36(2):151-158. 10.7580/KoreanJLegMed.2012.36.2.151.

The Effect of Elapsed Time on the Quantity of mRNA in Skin: A Study to Evaluate the Potential Forensic Use of mRNA to Determine the Postmortem Interval

• Song HJ
• Choi YL
• Kang SY
• Chae JM

• KMID: 2305474
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7580/KoreanJLegMed.2012.36.2.151

Abstract

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) has potential use in forensic science for the determination of postmortem interval. We report the first study on serial sampling of messenger RNA (mRNA) from surgical specimens to determine if there is a correlation between mRNA quantity and elapsed time. Skin tissues were collected from modified radical mastectomy specimens. After a defined period of time, bisected skin sections were cut and frozen in liquid nitrogen. Serial collection of the specimens was conducted, and frozen sections were obtained from all samples. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was performed using the extracted RNA to measure the transcriptional activity of 2 selected housekeeping genes. The selected loci were mRNA sequences that exhibited time-dependent quantitative changes in a previous study. We collected 44 samples from 9 different patients, with 3-10 samples collected per patient. The amount of mRNA transcripts present in the serial samples showed a weak time-dependent correlation trend only in some cases. Further studies to evaluate different target mRNA sequences are necessary, as is exploration of additional methods to evaluate mRNA transcript degradation.

Keyword

messenger RNA; postmortem interval; reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction

MeSH Terms

Forensic Sciences
Frozen Sections
Genes, Essential
Humans
Mastectomy, Modified Radical
Nitrogen
RNA
RNA Stability
RNA, Messenger
Skin
Nitrogen
RNA
RNA, Messenger

Figure

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  Fig. 1. The schematic shows the locations and size of target sequences on each mRNA.

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  Fig. 2. (A) This image shows a representative presentation of electrophoresis of extracted RNA compared to positive control (PC) with visible band for 18S (lower arrow) and 28S (upper arrow). (B) This plot shows the amplification of sequences in realtime PCR.

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  Fig. 3. These graphs show the relationship between the Ct values with elapsed time.

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  Fig. 4. These graphs show the relative quantifications of FASN1 along elapsed time (calibrator: FASN2).

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  Fig. 5. These graphs show relative quantifications of FASN1 along elapsed time (calibrator: ACTB1).

Reference

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