title: The rate of RNA degradation in human dental pulp reveals post-mortem interval.
abstract: Post-mortem interval (PMI) is the amount of time elapsed since the time of death. Over the years, many methods were developed to assess PMI, but their precision and time frame of applicability are often limited. Our present pilot study aimed to prove if RNA degradation of human dental pulp can be used for PMI estimation. RNA was isolated from the pulps of healthy wisdom teeth and premolars. RNA degradation was determined as RNA integrity number (RIN) with Agilent Bioanalyzer and subsequently by amplification of different length products by PCR after reverse transcription. The RNA integrity analysis allowed us to determine the time of post-mortem interval with high confidence level in the first 21 days. With the PCR-based method, we were able to perform a crude estimation of incubation time of teeth between 20 and 42 days post extraction. These results show that this method might be a promising new tool for PMI estimation despite the limitations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Hungary Szigeti Street 12, Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Viktor S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Poór
authors.affiliation: Dentoalveolar Division of Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Dischka Győző Street 5, Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Dénes
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lukács
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Ifjúság Street 13, Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Tamás
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagy
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Hungary Szigeti Street 12, Pécs, Hungary.
authors.forename: Evelin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rácz
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pécs, Hungary Szigeti Street 12, Pécs, Hungary. katalin.sipos@aok.pte.hu.
authors.forename: Katalin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sipos
mesh_terms: D003782:Dental Pulp / Q000737:chemistry*; D005553:Forensic Dentistry; D006801:Humans; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D012313:RNA / Q000302:isolation & purification; D020871:RNA Stability; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D012313:RNA
keywords: Forensic dentistry; Microfluidics; Nucleic acids; Polymerase chain reaction