Forensic Context

A study in human postmortem prefrontal cortex demonstrated that the mir-494 was significantly decreased (0.535 of control, p=0.0174) in depressed suicide subjects compared to non-psychiatric controls [Smalheiser et al. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0033201]. In human skin research, the mir-494 was upregulated in hypertrophic scar fibroblasts compared to normal fibroblasts and was also upregulated in heat-shocked skin epidermal stem cells [Siu et al. DOI:10.1111/wrr.13100]. A study in mice demonstrated that the mir-494 is a differentially expressed microRNA in response to ionizing radiation-induced thymus injury, where it was identified as a down-regulated known miRNA in the irradiated thymus [Chen et al. DOI:10.1080/09553002.2016.1207821]. In a separate forensic investigation using mouse drowning models, the mir-494 (specifically mmu-miR-494-3p) was identified as one of eight specific miRNAs up-regulated in freshwater drowning and down-regulated in saltwater drowning according to microarray analysis, with predicted brain targets including POU3F2, TRIM44, and TRANK1 [Yu et al. DOI:10.1016/j.forsciint.2015.06.011].