Authors: Girela, Eloy¹; Villanueva, Enrique²; Irigoyen, Pilar²; Girela, Victorino²; Hernández-Cueto, Claudio²; Peinado, José M.³

Source: Journal of Forensic Sciences, Volume 53, Number 3, May 2008 , pp. 730-733(4)

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Abstract:

: 

We studied free amino acids in vitreous humor and cerebrospinal fluid from 58 cadavers in the course of routine medicolegal autopsies in the city of Granada. The main objective was to establish whether free amino acids contents in these fluids were related with the cause of death, postmortem interval, and severity of the classic signs of asphyxia. The amino acids (aspartic acid, glutamic acid, serine, glutamine, glycine/threonine/histidine, citruline, arginine, alanine, taurine, GABA, tirosine, valine, methionine, isoleucine, phenylalanine/tryptophan, leucine, and lysine) were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography. There were no statistically significant differences in amino acids concentrations in vitreous humor when the different causes of death were considered. Our results did not show any statistically significant relationship when asphyxial score was plotted against the vitreous content of each amino acid. A statistically significant increase with postmortem interval was observed in vitreous taurine (r = 0.3191, p = 0.01461), glutamate (r = 0.4323, p = 0.0007) and particularly in aspartate (r = 0.4508, p = 0.0003).

Keywords: forensic science; vitreous humor; cerebrospinal fluid; amino acids; postmortem interval; postmortem chemistry; cause of death

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00726.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Legal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Córdoba, 14004 Córdoba, Spain. 2: Department of Legal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain. 3: Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain.

Publication date: 2008-05-01

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