Estimating the post-mortem interval (II): The use of differential temporal gene expression to determine the age of blowfly pupae

Abstract

To establish the minimum post-mortem interval (PMI) from insect evidence, an entomologist needs to accurately determine the age of the insects present on a discovered body. The aim of this work was to establish whether temporally expressed genes could be utilised as age markers for immature Dipteran insects. This study focused upon the pupal stage of Calliphora vicina (Diptera: Calliphoridae). Differentially expressed genes were located by differential display or from previous research. The expression of these genes during the pupal stage was quantified using real-time PCR. This preliminary research indicated that measuring gene expression is a viable technique to establish the age of immature Calliphora insects.