Jam. Deoliveira et Cc. Santosmartin, ENZYME-HISTOCHEMISTRY OF THE LIVER IN AUTOPSY MATERIAL AT DIFFERENT POSTMORTEM TIMES, Medicine, Science and the Law, 35(3), 1995, pp. 201-206
The authors report the enzyme histochemistry of the liver obtained fro
m autopsy material in 22 corpses (2 to 12 hours post-mortem) and perfo
rmed to evaluate the sensitivity of enzyme activities to the autolysis
process and the use of enzymes to estimate time in forensic pathology
The earliest sample was at 2 hours post-mortem; there was five cases
up to 5 hours; eight casts up to 8 hours and eight cases up to 12 hour
s since death. Active phosphorylase (PHYLA a) and total phosphorylase
(PHYLA t) were negative two hours after death. PHYLA t reaction repres
ents the activity of PHYLA a increased with the inactive phosphorylase
b which can be activated by the addition of ATP and Mg2+ to the incub
ation medium for phosphorylase a; this activation proved to be ineffec
tive in the post-mortem periods of this study. Glucose-6-phosphatase (
G6P-A) also showed a tendency to be sensitive to the autolysis process
, displaying a reaction progressively weaker or negative in the post-m
ortem periods of observation. The results indicate these enzymes as a
possible tool to estimate time in forensic pathology deserving further
investigation. Lactate dehydrogenase (L-D), alpha-glycerophosphate de
hydrogenase (alpha-GP-D) and beta-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (beta-
HOB-D) instead showed stronger reactions as the autolysis process evol
ved.