Research Progress of DNA-Based Technologies for Postmortem Interval Estimation

Abstract

In criminal investigations, postmortem interval （PMI） is important information to be inferred in homicide investigations, as well as the focus and the difficulty in forensic pathology research. Because the DNA content in different tissues is relatively constant and shows changes regularly with the extension of PMI, it has become a research hotspot of PMI estimation. This paper reviews the recent progress of PMI estimation technologies including DNA-based single cell gel electrophoresis, image analysis, flow cytometry, real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and high-throughput sequencing, hoping to provide references for forensic medicine practice and scientific research.

Keywords

• forensic pathology
• postmortem interval
• deoxyribonucleic acid （dna）
• single cell gel electrophoresis
• image analysis
• flow cytometry （fcm）
• real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction （rt-qpcr）
• review