Forensic diagnosis for heatstroke-a search for useful biomarkers by metabolic profiling

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25460880
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Legal medicine
• Research Institution: Osaka Medical College
• Principal Investigator: Suzuki Koichi 大阪医科大学, 医学部, 教授 (60171211)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): SATO Takako 大阪医科大学, 医学部, 准教授 (10530420) ; TSUCHIHASHI Hitoshi 名古屋大学, 医学系研究科, 招聘教員 (40596029)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: メタボロミクス / 熱中症 / 死後経過時間

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To search for biomarkers of heatstroke, we demonstrated by GC-MS/MS based plasma metabolic profiling that various endogenous metabolites changed with elevated body temperatures in heat-stressed animal models. We detected 72 metabolites, of which 18 metabolites (9 amino acids, 6 organic acids, and 3 monosaccharides) were found to be statistically correlated with rised body temperatures. These metabolites had a relationship with the energy productions. In addition, in order to understand the effect of postmortem interval (PMI) on those metabolites in plasma, we investigated the change of metabolites with time after death towards the future forensic casework. As a result, we constructed a PLS regression model which could successfully predict each PMI.

Free Research Field

法医学