Succession of Oral Microbiota Community As a Tool to Estimate Postmortem Interval

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2019 Sep 12

PMID 31506511

Citations 21

Authors

Kaikai Dong

Ye Xin

Fangqi Cao

Zhiwei Huang

Jing Sun

Min Peng

Wenbin Liu

Ping Shi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The establishment of postmortem interval is one of the most important aspects of forensic expertise. Microbes may provide a novel way to estimate the postmortem intervals in order to avoid many of these limitations. The oral cavity harbors one of the most diverse microbiomes that play a key role in the decomposition of corpses. In this study, the oral bacterial community showed obvious changes in relative abundance during the process of mice decomposition. Meanwhile, at different taxonomic levels, specific bacteria were found to be significantly correlated with the postmortem interval. Linear regression models between relative abundance and the postmortem interval were constructed. Among these species, Gamma-proteobacteria and Proteus were the best ones that can be used to infer the postmortem interval, especially late postmortem interval. Therefore, we suggest that succession of oral microbial community can be developed as a forensic tool for estimating the postmortem interval.

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