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The rate of RNA degradation in human dental pulp reveals post-mortem interval

International Journal of Legal Medicine volume 130, pages 615–619 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Post-mortem interval (PMI) is the amount of time elapsed since the time of death. Over the years, many methods were developed to assess PMI, but their precision and time frame of applicability are often limited. Our present pilot study aimed to prove if RNA degradation of human dental pulp can be used for PMI estimation. RNA was isolated from the pulps of healthy wisdom teeth and premolars. RNA degradation was determined as RNA integrity number (RIN) with Agilent Bioanalyzer and subsequently by amplification of different length products by PCR after reverse transcription. The RNA integrity analysis allowed us to determine the time of post-mortem interval with high confidence level in the first 21 days. With the PCR-based method, we were able to perform a crude estimation of incubation time of teeth between 20 and 42 days post extraction. These results show that this method might be a promising new tool for PMI estimation despite the limitations.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their thanks to Dr. László Tibor Németh and Dr. Luca Cserna for the collection of samples and to Andrea Valasek for her the help with the Agilent Bioanalyzer.

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Affiliations

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

    Viktor S. Poór, Evelin Rácz & Katalin Sipos

  2. Dentoalveolar Division of Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Dischka Győző Street 5, Pécs, Hungary

    Dénes Lukács

  3. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Ifjúság Street 13, Pécs, Hungary

    Tamás Nagy

Authors
  1. Viktor S. Poór
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  2. Dénes Lukács
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  3. Tamás Nagy
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  4. Evelin Rácz
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  5. Katalin Sipos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katalin Sipos.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Poór, V.S., Lukács, D., Nagy, T. et al. The rate of RNA degradation in human dental pulp reveals post-mortem interval. Int J Legal Med 130, 615–619 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1295-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-015-1295-y

Keywords

  • Forensic dentistry
  • Microfluidics
  • Polymerase chain reaction
  • Nucleic acids