Citation

Wang Q, Ishikawa T, Michiue T, Zhu BL, Guan DW, Maeda H. Forensic Sci. Int. 2012; 220(1-3): 154-157.

Affiliation

Department of Legal Medicine, Osaka City University Medical School, Osaka, Japan; Medico-legal Consultation and Postmortem Investigation Support Center (MLCPI-SC), Osaka, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.forsciint.2012.02.013

PMID

22421325

Abstract

The diagnosis of mechanical asphyxia as a cause of death, especially smothering and choking lacking evident injury, is one of the most difficult tasks in forensic pathology. The present study investigated the intrapulmonary expressions of aquaporins (AQPs; AQP-1 and AQP-5), as markers of water homeostasis, in forensic autopsy cases (total n=64, within 48h postmortem) of mechanical asphyxiation due to neck compression (strangulation, n=24), including manual/ligature strangulation (n=12) and atypical hanging (n=12), smothering (n=7) and choking (n=8), compared with sudden cardiac death (n=14) and acute brain injury (n=11). Quantification of mRNA using a Taqman real-time PCR assay system demonstrated suppressed expression of AQP-5, but not AQP-1, in smothering and choking, compared with that in strangulation as well as sudden cardiac death and acute brain injury death. Immunostaining of AQP-5 was weakly detected in a linear pattern in the type I alveolar epithelial cells in smothering and choking cases, while cardiac and brain injury death showed marked positivity, and most strangulation cases had AQP-5-positive granular aggregates and fragments in intra-alveolar spaces. These observations indicate a partial difference in pulmonary molecular pathology among these causes of death, suggesting a procedure for possible discrimination of smothering and choking from sudden cardiac death.

Language: en