Glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) and
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF) have been established as being responsible for cellular adaptation to
oxygen deficiency in tissue
ischemia and
hypoxia mediated by
hypoxia-inducible factor 1. We hypothesized that
mRNA quantification of these factors in autopsy tissue specimens could have diagnostic significance for investigating the pathology of death, especially after injury. Various cases (total, n=119; less than 48h postmortem) were examined, including fatal
blunt injury (n=71) and sharp instrument injury (n=18), as well as
asphyxia (strangulation/hanging, n=12) and acute
myocardial infarction/
ischemia (n=18) as controls. Quantification of
mRNA by TaqMan real-time RT-PCR and immunostaining were performed for GLUT1 and
VEGF in lung, kidney, and skeletal muscle specimens. The postmortem interval showed no significant influence on the relative quantification of
mRNA during the early postmortem period. Characteristic results were found in
blunt injury cases: both GLUT1 and
VEGF mRNAs decreased in the lung but increased in the skeletal muscle depending on survival time. In the kidney, subacute deaths showed higher GLUT1
mRNA levels compared with acute deaths from
blunt injury, but no significant change was found for
VEGF mRNA. Immunohistochemistry showed visually predominant GLUT1 immunoreactivity in the renal cortex for cases with a longer survival time, coincident with the results at the
mRNA level. Tissue-specific differences in
mRNA quantification of GLUT1 and
VEGF shed light on tissue
ischemia/
hypoxia and subsequent tissue-dependent pathophysiological changes leading to death after injury.