The issue on estimating the time of death coming still remains a challenge that requires a lot of questions to be answered, therefore, the development of new scientific methods aimed at overcoming these difficulties is a top priority in solving the problem of estimating the time of death coming.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural and biochemical changes in the muscle tissue of the diaphragm in the early post-mortem period.
The muscular tissue samples of the diaphragm just below the lungs taken from 30 human corpses in the early post-mortem period (in time intervals of 3-13 hours from the onset of death) were investigated. We studied structural and biochemical markers in the homogenates of the muscles of the diaphragm: the content of glycogen, acid phosphatase, lactate, lactate dehydrogenase, lipofuscin, and cholinesterase. It was found out that in the early post-mortem period structural and biochemical changes in the muscle tissue of the diaphragm are characterized by regular morphological biochemical and biophysical changes. In particular, the post-mortem dynamic changes in glycogen, acid phosphatase and lipofuscin levels is most significant; i.e. within the time interval of 3–9 hours from the time of death coming, the assessment of the “cholinesterase / glycogen or acidic phosphatase / glycogen” ratio is the most diagnostically valuable, then after 9 hours the only “cholinesterase / glycogen” ratio is meaningful.
The content of glycogen in the homogenates of the diaphragm muscle tissue depending on the time of death coming ranged from (4.765 ± 0.058) mg / g in 3 hours, to (1.883 ± 0.027) mg / g in 13 hours after the death coming, reliably ( p <0.001) differing in time intervals. The inverse pattern was characterized by the acid phosphatase content: (2.748 ± 0.019) u / g in 3 hours and (4.49 ± 0.032) u / g in 13 hours. These markers are the most significant to demonstrate the patterns and can be used as critically important signs in forensic diagnosis.
CONSISTENT PATTERNS OF POSTMORTAL STRUCTURAL AND BIOCHEMICAL CHANGES IN DIAPHRAGM MUSCULAR TISSUE: IMPORTANCE FOR FORENSIC MEDICAL ESTIMATION OF TIME OF DEATH COMING
