Cell survival and DNA damage repair are promoted in the human blood thanatotranscriptome shortly after death

Abstract RNA analysis of post-mortem tissues, or thanatotranscriptomics, has become a topic of interest in forensic science due to the essential information it can provide in forensic investigations. Several studies have previously investigated the effect of death on gene transcription, but it has n...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Laura G. Antiga, Lode Sibbens, Yasmina Abakkouy, Ronny Decorte, Wouter Van Den Bogaert, Wim Van de Voorde, Bram Bekaert
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/8e6f164102d14b689cfc6023b48e0f9a
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract RNA analysis of post-mortem tissues, or thanatotranscriptomics, has become a topic of interest in forensic science due to the essential information it can provide in forensic investigations. Several studies have previously investigated the effect of death on gene transcription, but it has never been conducted with samples of the same individual. For the first time, a longitudinal mRNA expression analysis study was performed with post-mortem human blood samples from individuals with a known time of death. The results reveal that, after death, two clearly differentiated groups of up- and down-regulated genes can be detected. Pathway analysis suggests active processes that promote cell survival and DNA damage repair, rather than passive degradation, are the source of early post-mortem changes of gene expression in blood. In addition, a generalized linear model with an elastic net restriction predicted post-mortem interval with a root mean square error of 4.75 h. In conclusion, we demonstrate that post-mortem gene expression data can be used as biomarkers to estimate the post-mortem interval though further validation using independent sample sets is required before use in forensic casework.