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Biomarker profiling of postmortem blood for diabetes mellitus and discussion of possible applications of metabolomics for forensic casework

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Abstract

Acute metabolic disorders of diabetes mellitus (DM), such as diabetic ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state, and hypoglycemia, are life-threatening and difficult to diagnose postmortem owing to lack of macroscopic and microscopic findings, especially when the medical history of the patient is not available before autopsy. Although various biochemical tests, including ketone bodies and hemoglobin A1c, have been used to diagnose diabetes in the postmortem setting, each marker has some limitations. Consequently, it would be helpful in forensic practice to find new biomarkers reflecting the decedent’s history of DM irrespective of whether the DM was being treated. Metabolomics enables the non-targeting analysis of biomarkers, and metabolomics was performed on postmortem blood from decedents with and without a DM history to determine whether a marker reflecting DM could be identified. The statistical analysis, including primary component analysis, presented a potent set of metabolites that could be used for the forensic diagnosis of DM. Qualitative analysis revealed significantly lower sphingomyelin and plasmalogen lipid levels and higher lysophospholipid levels in the DM group. Meanwhile, some discrepancies in the levels of some classes of phospholipids were noted between samples from living and deceased persons. This suggests that further metabolomics using postmortem samples rather than living persons’ samples is required to identify markers that can be used for forensic diagnosis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Maika Nariai, Yohsuke Makino & Hirotaro Iwase

  2. Bio Design Inc., 3-25-15 Nishi-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo, 171-0021, Japan

    Hiroko Abe

  3. Department of Legal Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba City, Chiba, 260-8670, Japan

    Yumi Hoshioka, Yohsuke Makino & Hirotaro Iwase

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  1. Maika Nariai
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Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Maika Nariai and Hiroko Abe. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Maika Nariai and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Maika Nariai.

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Nariai, M., Abe, H., Hoshioka, Y. et al. Biomarker profiling of postmortem blood for diabetes mellitus and discussion of possible applications of metabolomics for forensic casework. Int J Legal Med 136, 1075–1090 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02767-w

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