Molecular pathology investigation of post mortem change
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigation of post mortem change to nucleic acids and protein levels in normal tissue.
IRAS ID
197906
Contact name
Anthony Warford
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Westminster
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 8 months, 31 days
Research summary
The research will investigate the effects of post mortem change on nucleic acids and their expression at protein level within intact normal tissues and homogenate preparations of them. Taken together complementary information will be provided linking the nucleic acids, at DNA and RNA level with their expression in a variety of human tissues. Thin sections of intact tissue mounted on microscope slides will be used to localise nucleic acids and proteins to exact cell types using the techniques of in situ hybridisation, for DNA and RNA, and immunocytochemistry for proteins. By analysing the homogenates, information on the presence of genetic alterations in individual genes and quantitative determination of RNA expression will be available. Sequencing and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction methods (e.g. real time qRT-PCR) will be used, respectively, to provide this quantitative data. This collected data will be used to compare gene structure and gene expression profiles with published data for normal and pathological tissue obtained by surgical resection and thereby provide a valuable measure of the effect of post mortem change in a cadaveric sample set where procedures were taken to standardise the handling of the donors after death prior to the removal of selected tissues.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EM/0156
Date of REC Opinion
5 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion