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PCR-based identification of drowning: four case reports

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Abstract

Proper diagnosis in drowning victims is often difficult due to the lack of signs specific to drowning. The diatom test is a widely used procedure for the diagnosis. Some types of water contain only minimal amounts of diatom cells which may provide false-negative results, while a negative diatom test result does not exclude drowning. In proving drowning, we used a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based biological method in addition to the conventional methods. DNA was extracted from postmortem spleen tissues and water of the drowning site. Samples were tested with algae (diatoms and small green algae)- and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)-specific primers. We present here multiple drowning cases in which diatom tests of the postmortem tissue samples and the water were negative. In each case, the presence of phytoplanktonic DNA strengthened the autopsy diagnosis of drowning even in the absence of visible diatoms. In the future, the PCR method may be of consideration as a possible supplement of the diatom test in the examination of presumed drowning cases.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Gábor Simon and Edina Pandur for comments and advice on the manuscript; Tünde Wéber for her technical assistance; and Gábor Rébék-Nagy, Jon E. Marquette, and Ricky Odedra for the linguistic help. We also would like to thank Professor Lajos Vörös for his help and excellent advices in the preliminary experiments and Attila Kovács (Department of Hidrobotany, Balaton Limnological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre of Ecological Research, Tihany, Hungary) for providing us positive control algal and cyanobacterial strains. We are especially grateful to Zsuzsanna Pohner (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary) for providing us the method for diatom DNA extraction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, 12 Szigeti Street, Pécs, 7624, Hungary

    Evelin Rácz, Franciska Könczöl, Dénes Tóth, Zoltán Patonai, Zoltán Porpáczy, Zsolt Kozma, Viktor S. Poór & Katalin Sipos

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  1. Evelin Rácz
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  2. Franciska Könczöl
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  3. Dénes Tóth
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  4. Zoltán Patonai
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  5. Zoltán Porpáczy
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  6. Zsolt Kozma
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  7. Viktor S. Poór
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  8. Katalin Sipos
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Correspondence to Katalin Sipos.

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Rácz, E., Könczöl, F., Tóth, D. et al. PCR-based identification of drowning: four case reports. Int J Legal Med 130, 1303–1307 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-016-1359-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-016-1359-7

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