The postmortem microbiome and gene expression in vertebrates

In life, most internal organs of a healthy adult vertebrate are essentially ‘microbial-cell-free’ – but in death, microorganisms invade and proliferate these internal organs and genes are expressed by the host presumably in response. We recently investigated how these two interconnected processes change with postmortem time and examined the feasibility of using this information to determine the postmortem interval, i.e. the elapsed-time-since-death. Although more research is needed, our findings suggest one of them has a significant potential to determine the length of time from the person dying until discovery of the body.