Determining the age of a wound is challenging in forensic pathology, but it can contribute to the reconstruction of crime scenes and lead to arrest of suspects. Forensic scholars have tended to focus on evaluating wound vitality and determining the time elapsed since the wound was sustained. Recent progress in forensic techniques, particularly high-throughput analyses, has enabled evaluation of materials at the cellular and molecular levels, as well as simultaneous assessment of multiple markers. This paper provides an update on wound-age estimation in forensic pathology, summarizes the recent literature, and considers useful additional information provided by each marker. Finally, the future prospects for estimating wound age in forensic practise are discussed with the hope of providing something useful for further study.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a disease involving multiple genes and systems. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent a class of non-coding small RNAs that post-transcriptionally suppress their target genes. The expression patterns of miRNA and messenger RNA (mRNA) in DVT remain poorly characterized. The aim of the present study was to evaluate miRNA and mRNA expression profiles in a stasis-induced DVT rat model. Male SD rats were randomly divided into three groups as follows: DVT, sham and control. The inferior vena cava (IVC) of rats was ligated to construct stasis-induced DVT models. Rats were sacrificed three days after ligation, and morphological changes in the vein tissues were observed by hematoxylin and eosin and Masson staining. The miRNA and mRNA expression profiles were evaluated by microarrays, followed by bioinformatics analysis. The microarray analysis identified 22 miRNAs and 487 mRNAs that were significantly differentially expressed between the experimental and control groups, and between the experimental and sham groups, but not between the control and sham groups (P≤0.05; ≥2.0-fold change). By subsequent bioinformatics analysis, a 19 miRNA-98 mRNAs network was constructed in the stasis-induced DVT rat model. Notably, the majority of these miRNAs and mRNAs are reported to be expressed by endothelial cells (ECs) and are associated with the function of ECs. The results provide evidence indicating that the regulatory association of miRNA and mRNA points to key roles played by ECs in thrombosis. These findings advance our understanding of the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of DVT.

Following skeletal muscle injury (SMI), from post-injury reaction to repair consists of a complex series of dynamic changes. However, there is a paucity of research on detailed transcriptional dynamics and time-dependent marker gene expression in the early stages after SMI. In this study, skeletal muscle tissue in rats was taken at 4 to 48 h after injury for next-generation sequencing. We examined the transcriptional kinetics characteristics during above time periods after injury. STEM and maSigPro were used to screen time-correlated genes. Integrating 188 time-correlated genes with 161 genes in each time-related gene module by WGCNA, we finally identified 18 network-node regulatory genes after SMI. Histological staining analyses confirmed the mechanisms underlying changes in the tissue damage to repair process. Our research linked a variety of dynamic biological processes with specific time periods and provided insight into the characteristics of transcriptional dynamics, as well as screened time-related biological indicators with biological significance in the early stages after SMI.

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To estimate the age of skeletal muscle contusion, the expression of SNAT2 mRNA in contused skeletal muscle of rats was detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In total, 78 Sprague-Dawley male rats were divided into control and contusion groups. At 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44, and 48 h (n = 6) after contusion, the rats were sacrificed with a lethal dose of pentobarbital. Another 24 rats received contusion injuries at 6, 12, 18, and 24 h (n = 6) after death. Total RNA was isolated from muscle specimens using the TRIzol reagent and reverse-transcribed into first-strand cDNA. Sequence-specific primers and TaqMan fluorogenic probes for SNAT2 mRNA and RPL13 mRNA were designed using the AlleleID 6 software, and the expression levels of SNAT2 mRNA were determined by real-time PCR. At 4, 16, 20, and 24 h after contusion, expression levels of SNAT2 mRNA normalized to RPL13 mRNA increased by 2.07 (P < 0.05), 2.53 (P < 0.05), 2.68 (P < 0.05), and 2.06 fold (P < 0.05) respectively, versus that in the control group. However, there was no significant change in the expression level of SNAT2 mRNA from 24 to 48 h (P > 0.05) after contusion, when normalized to RPL13 mRNA. There was no change in the expression level of SNAT2 mRNA between the normal skeletal muscle from the left limb of the same injured rat and the control. Also, no degradation of SNAT2 mRNA was detected in the postmortem samples (P > 0.05). This result suggests that the determination of SNAT2 mRNA levels by real-time PCR may be useful for estimating wound age.