Abstract
ABSTRACT In forensic practice, the nonspecificity of macroscopic and microscopic findings renders the diagnosis of fatal hypothermia an ongoing challenge for forensic pathologists. Thus, the development of new methods to help improve the accurate diagnosis of fatal hypothermia is needed. In this study, attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics was employed to characterize rabbit vitreous humour (VH) in fatal hypothermia. First, a statistical analysis of spectra from two groups revealed that nucleic acid and glucose levels were significantly higher in the VH of the fatal-hypothermia group than that of the control group. Subsequently, principal component analysis further indicated that the fatal-hypothermia group had increased glucose and nucleic acid levels than those of the control group. Ultimately, a robust genetic algorithm-guided partial least-square discriminant analysis model was constructed to predict unknown VH donors with 100% accuracy. This preliminary study demonstrates that combining VH ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and chemometrics may be an effective method in the identification of fatal hypothermia.
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