Elsevier

Legal Medicine

Volume 11, Issue 5, September 2009, Pages 245-247
Legal Medicine

Brief Communication
von Willebrand factor in cadaveric urine for forensic investigation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.legalmed.2009.04.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Preliminary experimental study of urinary von Willebrand factor (VWF) concentration was undertaken to evaluate the utility of this parameter in forensic investigations. ELISA was used to measure VWF concentration. Correlations of urinary VWF with cause of death and postmortem interval (PMI) were ascertained. As PMI advanced, urinary VWF increased but plasma VWF did not. Cause of death was not significantly correlated with VWF. This study indicated the possibility that urinalysis would be helpful to estimate PMI.

Introduction

In forensic autopsy, cadaveric blood is an awkward sample from which to estimate antemortem status or postmortem interval (PMI) since its decomposition progresses so rapidly. Hence chemical parameters of other body fluids such as vitreous humor (VH), pericardial fluid, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and joint fluid have been well studied as alternatives [1], [2], [3]. However, there are few reports regarding the composition of cadaveric urine.

As metabolites and waste products accumulate in urine in healthy individuals, urine is a very important sample in clinical diagnosis. Even simple urinalysis provides considerable information such as amount of protein, pH, and presence of occult blood. However, the use of cadaveric urine is generally limited to toxicological analysis in practical forensic examination.

von Willebrand factor (VWF) has a crucial role in hemostasis, being involved in platelet attachment to the subendothelium and acting as a carrier protein for coagulation factor VIII. VWF is synthesized and stored as ultra-large forms in Weibel–Palade bodies in vascular endothelial cells. The stored VWF is released when endothelial cells are activated by various agonists. Upon release, ultra-large VWF is cleaved by the metalloprotease ADAMTS-13 in plasma [4]. Since there are no cleaving enzymes in urine, urinary VWF should be structurally stable. We therefore focused our attention on VWF in urine.

In order to elucidate the usefulness of urinalysis in the estimation of PMI or cause of death, we took urinary VWF concentration for instance in this preliminary experiment.

Section snippets

Materials

With the permission of the ethics committee of Nara Medical University, urine and blood were obtained from 44 autopsied cadavers (male: n = 31, aged 54.6 ± 25.0 years, female: n = 13, aged 54.7 ± 20.0 years). We selected the cases whose PMI could be estimated strictly based on traditional autopsy findings, final confirmation of survive or death scene investigation. PMI of the sampled specimens were as follows: 6–12 h (group A, n = 4), 13–24 h (group B, n = 17), 25–36 h (group C, n = 11), and 37–48 h (group D, n = 

Results and discussion

First, we compared VWF concentrations with respect to cause of death (Table 1). There were no significant differences in both urinary and plasma VWF concentration according to cause of death.

Second, we performed a correlation analysis between VWF concentration and PMI. Urinary VWF showed a positive correlation with PMI (Fig. 1A). The p-values for group B, C and D against group A were 0.26, 0.0078 and 0.0035, respectively (Scheffe test). On the other hand, plasma VWF was not correlated with PMI (

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