The devil is in the details: Variable impacts of season, BMI, sampling site temperature, and presence of insects on the post-mortem microbiome.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Post-mortem microbial communities are increasingly investigated as proxy evidence for a variety of factors of interest in forensic science. The reported predictive power of the microbial community to determine aspects of the individual's post-mortem history (e.g., the post-mortem interval) varies substantially among published research. This observed variation is partially driven by the local environment or the individual themselves. In the current study, we investigated the impact of BMI, sex, insect activity, season, repeat sampling, decomposition time, and temperature on the microbial community sampled from donated human remains in San Marcos, TX using a high-throughput gene-fragment metabarcoding approach.

Materials and methods

In the current study, we investig

SUBMITTER: Tarone AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9768039 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature