title: Postmortem stability of the rat atrial natriuretic peptide in blood and atrial tissue.
abstract: The postmortem stability of the rat Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP) has been studied as a necessary and previous step to be applied in the forensic field as a postmortem marker. This peptide--whose extreme sensitivity to slight changes in blood volume is well known--could have great importance in thanatochemistry to establish a correct diagnosis when macroscopical observations and classical parameters are not conclusive or cannot be employed. The results show high stability in atrial tissue, where values are similar from 0 hours (108.99 pm/mg) to 8 hours (109.41 pm/mg) and decrease uniformly until 15 pm/mg) at 32 hours, time of our last determination. Blood ANP showed similar stability from 0 h (105.43 pg/ml) to 8 h (106.62 pg/ml).
authors.affiliation: Cátedra de Medicina Legal, Facultad de Medicina, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Lorente
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hernández-Cueto
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Villanueva
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009320:Atrial Natriuretic Factor / Q000032:analysis*; D001810:Blood Volume; D006325:Heart Atria / Q000032:analysis*; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains
chemical_list: D009320:Atrial Natriuretic Factor