The success of forensic investigations involving fatalities very often depends on the establishment of the correct timeline of events. Currently used methods for estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) are mostly dependent on the professional and tacit experience of the investigator, and often with poor reliability in the absence of robust biological markers. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of metabolomic approaches to highlight molecular markers for PMI. Rat and human muscle tissues, collected at various times postmortem, were analyzed using an untargeted metabolomics approach. Levels of certain metabolites (skatole, xanthine, n-acetylneuraminate, 1-methylnicotinamide, choline phosphate, and uracil) as well as most proteinogenic amino acids increased steadily postmortem. Threonine, tyrosine, and lysine show the most predictable evolution over the postmortem period, and may thus have potential for possible PMI markers in the future. This study demonstrates how a biomarker discovery approach can be extended to forensic investigations using untargeted metabolomics.

中文翻译：

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死后组学：非靶向代谢组学突出死亡时间标记的潜力

涉及死亡的法医调查的成功通常取决于确定正确的事件时间表。目前用于估计死后间隔 (PMI) 的方法大多依赖于调查员的专业和默会经验，并且在缺乏可靠的生物标记的情况下通常可靠性较差。本研究的目的是调查代谢组学方法在突出 PMI 分子标记方面的潜力。在死后不同时间收集的大鼠和人类肌肉组织使用非靶向代谢组学方法进行分析。某些代谢物（粪臭素、黄嘌呤、n-乙酰神经氨酸、1-甲基烟酰胺、磷酸胆碱和尿嘧啶）以及大多数蛋白氨基酸的水平在死后稳定增加。苏氨酸、酪氨酸、和赖氨酸在死后期间显示出最可预测的演变，因此可能在未来有可能成为 PMI 标记。这项研究展示了如何将生物标志物发现方法扩展到使用非靶向代谢组学的法医调查。