Investigation of oxyhemoglobin and carboxyhemoglobin ratios in right and left cardiac blood for diagnosis of fatal hypothermia and death by fire.

Few large-scale investigations have looked at the oxyhemoglobin ratio (%O2-Hb) or the carboxyhemoglobin ratio (%CO-Hb) in fatal hypothermia and death by fire as applicable to forensic medicine. We therefore retrospectively examined right and left cardiac blood samples for both %O2-Hb and %CO-Hb in 690 forensic autopsy cases. We therefore sought to establish reference values for the above forensic diagnoses, to compare %O2-Hb in fatal hypothermia with or without cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and to compare the relationship between %CO-Hb and smoking history. All %O2-Hb and %CO-Hb data were obtained during or immediately after autopsies using a portable CO-oximeter. Death by carbon monoxide (CO) intoxication and death by fire were excluded from the analysis involving smoking history. In fatal hypothermia, %O2-Hb in the left cardiac blood was significantly higher than that in the right cardiac blood, providing important evidence for fatal hypothermia. Furthermore, %O2-Hb in the left cardiac blood increases with CPR but that in the right cardiac blood increases in parallel. No correlation was observed between rectal temperature and %O2-Hb in the right and left cardiac blood, indicating that it is unlikely that postmortem cooling increases %O2-Hb in cardiac blood. %CO-Hb in smokers was significantly higher than that in non-smokers, although the number of cigarettes smoked did not appear to be significant. When assessing death by fire, we identified that %CO-Hb of >10% was a reliable marker of antemortem CO inhalation, regardless of smoking history.

SNP genotyping in the beta(2)-adrenergic receptor by electronic microchip assay, DHPLC, and direct sequencing.

The beta(2)-adrenergic receptor (beta2AR) is the key target for the beta(2)-agonist drugs used for bronchodilation in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. To detect four SNPs with amino acid variations at positions -47T/C (CysBUP19Arg), 46A/G (Gly16Arg), 79C/G (Gln27Glu), and 491C/T (Thr164Ile) in the beta 2AR gene, we used the electronic microchip assay, denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC), and direct sequencing. Genomic DNA samples were obtained from the blood of 84 Japanese healthy volunteers. The agreement rates of the first data set with the final data (allele calls) were 99.7% (332/333), 99.2% (246/248), and 96.7% (329/340). The percentages of no allele designation (ND) were 2.06% (7/340), 2.75% (7/255), and 0.00% (0/340) for the electronic microchip assay, DHPLC, and direct sequencing, respectively. Furthermore, we found three samples that had a novel haplotype.