Tool mark examinations hold an eminent place in criminal routine work. Since the fundamental treatises of Kockel [1–3], the examination technique has continually been improved and extended to numerous methods of criminal investigation. Thomas [4] has given a fascinating survey of this development and has listed a series of notable authors. Further important publications are those by Mezger et al [5], Burd and Kirk [6], Burd and Greene [7–9], Flynn [10], Biasotti [11], Burd and Gilmore [12], Rees and Cundy [13], and, in German publications, by Mezger et al [14,15], Nippe [16], Specht [17,18], Bessemans [19], Angermayer et al [20], Winkler [21], Katona [22], and Hantsche and Schwarz [23].

RNA isolated from frozen human post-mortem brain tissue was used for analysis of five gene products with a recently developed sensitive and competitive RT-PCR technique. Samples varying in post-mortem intervals up to four days from controls, schizophrenics and alcoholics were analyzed. Evaluation of three housekeeping genes, as well as Trk B and Trk C demonstrated that the levels of mRNA transcripts were stable in brain samples at all time periods (one to four days) examined. This observation demonstrates that this RT-PCR protocol is a sensitive and reliable method to study relative amounts of mRNAs. The overall stability of housekeeping transcripts implicates the value of post-mortem brain samples for differential gene expression studies.

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