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A pilot study investigating early postmortem interval of rats based on ambient temperature and postmortem interval-related metabolites in blood

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Abstract

Estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI), especially the early PMI, plays a key role in forensic practice. Although several studies based on metabolomics approaches have presented significant findings for PMI estimation, most did not examine the effects of ambient temperature. In this study, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC‒MS)‒based metabolomics was adopted to explore the changes in metabolites in the cardiac blood of suffocated rats at various ambient temperatures (5 °C, 15 °C, 25 °C, and 35 °C) from 0 to 24 h after death. Isoleucine, alanine, proline, valine, glycerol, glycerol phosphate, xanthine, and hypoxanthine were found to contribute to PMI in all temperature groups. Hypoxanthine and isoleucine were chosen to establish estimation models (equations) with an interpolation function using PMI as the dependent variable (f(x, y)), relative intensity as the independent variable x, and temperature as the independent variable y. Thereafter, these two models were validated with predictive samples and shown to have potential predictive ability. The findings indicate that isoleucine, alanine, proline, valine, glycerol, glycerol phosphate, xanthine, and hypoxanthine may be significant for PMI estimation at various ambient temperatures. Furthermore, a method to determine PMI based on ambient temperature and PMI-related metabolites was explored, which may provide a basis for future studies and practical applications.

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Abbreviations

GC‒MS:

Gas chromatography‒mass spectrometry

NIST:

National Institute of Standards and Technology

PCA:

Principal component analysis

PLS:

Partial least-squares

PMI:

Postmortem interval

QC:

Quality control

VIP:

Variable importance in the projection

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (grant numbers 82072111, 82030057) and the Scientific Research Fund of Wannan Medical College (grant number WK202105).

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Author notes

  1. Shiyong Fang and Xinhua Dai contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Analytical Toxicology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China

    Shiyong Fang, Xinhua Dai, Li Xiao, Yi Ye & Linchuan Liao

  2. School of Forensic Medicine, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu 241002, Anhui, China

    Shiyong Fang & Xiaoling Shi

  3. Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China

    Xinhua Dai

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  1. Shiyong Fang
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  2. Xinhua Dai
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  4. Li Xiao
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  5. Yi Ye
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Contributions

Shiyong Fang: conceptualization, investigation, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing. Xinhua Dai: investigation, writing — review and editing. Xiaoling Shi: data curation, formal analysis. Li Xiao: investigation, data curation, formal analysis. Yi Ye: writing — review and editing. Linchuan Liao: conceptualization, writing — review and editing.

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Correspondence to Linchuan Liao.

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Fang, S., Dai, X., Shi, X. et al. A pilot study investigating early postmortem interval of rats based on ambient temperature and postmortem interval-related metabolites in blood. Forensic Sci Med Pathol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-023-00643-0

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