Thanatometabolomics: introducing NMR-based metabolomics to identify metabolic biomarkers of the time of death

Introduction Death is the permanent cessation of the critical functions of the organism as a whole. However, the shutdown of a complex biological organism does not abruptly terminate at time of death. New high-throughput technologies allow the systematic investigation of the biochemical modulations occurring after death. Recent genomics studies have demonstrated that genes remain active after death, triggering upregulation of some genes and initiating feedback loops. These genes were mostly involved in pathways related to immunity, inflammation and cancer. These genetic modulations suggest many biochemical events persist after death, which can be captured using a metabolomics approach.