• Helena Kaija, Lasse Pakanen, and Katja Porvari.
• Faculty of Medicine, Research Unit of Internal Medicine, Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, FI-90014, Oulu, Finland.
• Int. J. Legal Med. 2020 Jan 1; 134 (1): 159-162.

AbstractHere, we tested the usefulness of small non-coding RNAs as references in quantitative RT-PCR expression analyses in hypothermia and chronic cardiac ischemia as the primary causes of death. Cq values of RNU6B, SCARNA17, SNORD25, and SNORA73A were determined from human cadaver samples of hypothermia and cardiac deaths. Average Cq values of RNU6B were higher in hypothermic and average SCARNA17 Cq values in chronic ischemic samples, but no difference in SNORD25 and SNORA73A Cq values could be seen between the groups. RNU6B expression levels were calculated using SNORD25, SNORA73A, and their combination as the reference in normalization. Expression of RNU6B, a widely used reference, was found to be significantly lower in hypothermia than in chronic cardiac ischemia. In these conditions, RNU6B is a useful marker differentiating hypothermia deaths from chronic ischemic heart disease deaths, but not a valid reference for normalization in expression studies.

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