title: A novel method for the diagnosis of drowning by detection of Aeromonas sobria with PCR method.
abstract: The acid digestion method has been widely used for the diagnosis of death by drowning, but it is not always sensitive. However, there has been no definitive method to replace acid digestion until now. We speculate that bacteria are more useful markers than plankton for the diagnosis of death by drowning. In this study, from the preserved blood samples of 32 freshwater drowning cases, specific DNA fragments of Aeromonas sobria, one of the most common aquatic bacteria, were examined using PCR. The DNA fragments of the bacterium were detected from 27 of 32 cases with first round PCR or nested-PCR. The remaining 5 cases in which bacterial DNA was not detected had longer storage periods for the blood samples and shorter time intervals from drowning to death. These results indicate that the present method can be applied to the diagnosis of death by drowning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, 3-25-8 Nishi-shinbashi, Minato-ku, 105-8461 Tokyo, Japan. miwako-a@jikei.ac.jp
authors.forename: Miwako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aoyagi
authors.forename: Kimiharu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Iwadate
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fukui
authors.forename: Shuntaro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Kentaro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.forename: Kyoko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maebashi
authors.forename: Eriko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ochiai
authors.forename: Mihoko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakamura
mesh_terms: D000333:Aeromonas / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D004332:Drowning / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial