Expression of cTnT in rabbit hearts during myocardial ischemia and its postmortem stability / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To study the postmortem stability of cTnT as well as its expression alteration, and to evaluate it in the diagnosis of early myocardial ischemia in forensic practice.@*METHODS@#Animal model of early myocardial ischemia was established by rabbit coronary artery ligation. The expression of cTnT in myocardium at different postmortem intervals was detected using immunohistochemistry and analyzed using imaging technique and statistics. The results were then compared between the experimental and control groups.@*RESULTS@#In ischemic myocardium, the expression of cTnT showed prominent focal or flaky depletion in myocardial cytoplasm with no expression detected in interstitium. The expression level showed a linear decrease with prolonged postmortem interval, and disappeared completely on day 14 after death while stored at 4 degrees C. However, there were significant differences in the expression levels of cTnT between experimental and control groups from day 1 to day 7 after death.@*CONCLUSION@#Immunohistochemical detection of cTnT for diagnosis of early myocardial ischemia in corpses stored at 4 degrees C must be performed within 7 days after death.

The expression of ubiquitin in the healing process of incised wounds of rat's skin and its significance to forensic medicine / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To evaluate the changes of ubiquitin expression in incised wounds of the rat skin.@*METHODS@#The testing rat groups were subjected to incised skin wounds, with normal rat skin used as control. The expression level of ubiquitin was assessed using immunohistochemistry and imaging analysis technique on skin samples taken at 1, 3, 6, 12h, and on day 1, 3, 6, 10, and 14d after injury.@*RESULTS@#The expression level of ubiquitin was low in the skin of normal control group. Increased level of ubiquitin expression could be observed 1 h after injury. The expression level of ubiquitin reached its peak on day 6 and started to decline on day 10, and then returned to its normal level on day 14 d after injury.@*CONCLUSION@#Ubiquitin may serve as a potentially useful marker for forensic determination of the skin wound age.

Recent advancement in relationship between DNA degradation and postmortem interval / 法医学杂志

Determination of postmortem interval (PMI) is one of the most valuable subjects in forensic practice. It, however, is often very difficult to accurately determine the PMI in daily practice. Forensic DNA technology has recently been used to estimate the PMI. It has certain advantage to traditional methods. This article reviews this technology with respect to its invention, development, advantage, disadvantage, and potential future applications with emphasis on correlation of DNA degradation and PMI.