Diatoms are unicellular microalgae with cell wall made up of rigid silica found in all open water bodies. They thus resist degradation and hence are important tool to diagnose cause of death in drowned bodies. The nitric acid digestion method practiced conventionally in forensic science laboratories has limitations due to manual error. Plant chloroplast genes found in diatoms such as ribulose‐1,5‐bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase (rbcL‐3P) and rbcL, universal plastidic amplicon (UPA), and photosynthesis I P700 apoprotein chlorophyll Al (psaA), which play an important role in photosystems I and II of photosynthesis, are tested to diagnose drowning in experimental mice. It was seen that psaA‐2 showed amplification at 150 bp in all biological samples. The sequences of psaA‐2 gene marker showed 100% proximity to Thalassiosira weissflogii and rbcL‐3P showed 99% resemblance to Pseudo‐nitzschia multiseries. On the other hand, in postmortem drowned biological samples, the chloroplast‐based gene marker failed to show any amplification.

中文翻译：

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叶绿体基因标志物检测溺水小鼠中的硅藻DNA，从而将溺水定为死亡原因。

硅藻是单细胞微藻，其细胞壁由在所有开放水域中发现的刚性二氧化硅组成。因此，它们抵抗降解，因此是诊断溺水者死亡原因的重要工具。由于人工错误，在法医实验室中常规采用的硝酸消解方法存在局限性。在硅藻中发现的植物叶绿体基因，例如核糖-1,5-二磷酸羧化酶氧化酶（rbcL-3P）和rbcL，通用质体扩增子（UPA）和光合作用I P700载脂蛋白叶绿素Al（psaA）测试了光合作用的I和II以诊断实验小鼠的溺水现象。可以看到psaA-2在所有生物样品中均显示出150 bp的扩增。的序列链球菌psaA-2基因标记显示100％的接近海链weissflogii和rbcL基因-3P显示99％的相似性拟菱形藻multiseries。另一方面，在死后淹没的生物样品中，基于叶绿体的基因标记未显示任何扩增。