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Clijsters M, Khan M, Backaert W, Jorissen M, Speleman K, Van Bulck P, Van Den Bogaert W, Vandenbriele C, Mombaerts P, Van Gerven L. Protocol for postmortem bedside endoscopic procedure to sample human respiratory and olfactory cleft mucosa, olfactory bulbs, and frontal lobe. STAR Protoc 2024; 5:102831. [PMID: 38277268 PMCID: PMC10837096 DOI: 10.1016/j.xpro.2023.102831] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2023] [Revised: 11/03/2023] [Accepted: 12/22/2023] [Indexed: 01/28/2024] Open
Abstract
We present a protocol for the rapid postmortem bedside procurement of selected tissue samples using an endoscopic endonasal surgical technique that we adapted from skull base surgery. We describe steps for the postmortem collection of blood, cerebrospinal fluid, a nasopharyngeal swab, and tissue samples; the clean-up procedure; and the initial processing and storage of the samples. This protocol was validated with tissue samples procured postmortem from COVID-19 patients and can be applied in another emerging infectious disease. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Khan et al. (2021)1 and Khan et al. (2022).2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marnick Clijsters
- Department of Neurosciences, Experimental Otorhinolaryngology, Rhinology Research, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Mona Khan
- Max Planck Research Unit for Neurogenetics, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Wout Backaert
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Mark Jorissen
- Department of Neurosciences, Experimental Otorhinolaryngology, Rhinology Research, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Kato Speleman
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende AV, 8000 Bruges, Belgium
| | - Pauline Van Bulck
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Wouter Van Den Bogaert
- Department of Imaging & Pathology, Forensic Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Forensic Medicine, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Christophe Vandenbriele
- Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
| | - Peter Mombaerts
- Max Planck Research Unit for Neurogenetics, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Laura Van Gerven
- Department of Neurosciences, Experimental Otorhinolaryngology, Rhinology Research, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Allergy and Clinical Immunology Research Unit, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
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Gosch A, Bhardwaj A, Courts C. TrACES of time: Transcriptomic analyses for the contextualization of evidential stains - Identification of RNA markers for estimating time-of-day of bloodstain deposition. Forensic Sci Int Genet 2023; 67:102915. [PMID: 37598452 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2023.102915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2023] [Revised: 07/20/2023] [Accepted: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
Obtaining forensically relevant information beyond who deposited a biological stain on how and under which circumstances it was deposited is a question of increasing importance in forensic molecular biology. In the past few years, several studies have been produced on the potential of gene expression analysis to deliver relevant contextualizing information, e.g. on nature and condition of a stain as well as aspects of stain deposition timing. However, previous attempts to predict the time-of-day of sample deposition were all based on and thus limited by previously described diurnal oscillators. Herein, we newly approached this goal by applying current sequencing technologies and statistical methods to identify novel candidate markers for forensic time-of-day predictions from whole transcriptome analyses. To this purpose, we collected whole blood samples from ten individuals at eight different time points throughout the day, performed whole transcriptome sequencing and applied biostatistical algorithms to identify 81 mRNA markers with significantly differential expression as candidates to predict the time of day. In addition, we performed qPCR analysis to assess the characteristics of a subset of 13 candidate predictors in dried and aged blood stains. While we demonstrated the general possibility of using the selected candidate markers to predict time-of-day of sample deposition, we also observed notable variation between different donors and storage conditions, highlighting the relevance of employing accurate quantification methods in combination with robust normalization procedures.This study's results are foundational and may be built upon when developing a targeted assay for time-of-day predictions from forensic blood samples in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Gosch
- Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical Faculty, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - A Bhardwaj
- Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany
| | - C Courts
- Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical Faculty, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
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