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11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida 33199

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Title: Unraveling Forensic Timelines with Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Blowfly Phormia regina Larvae

 

By: Sheng-Hao Lin

Biological Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow

 

Abstract

Forensic entomologists often rely on the morphological traits of insects, such as length and weight, to estimate the time of death. Blowflies like Phormia regina are particularly significant in North American forensic investigations. However, age estimation of older blowfly maggots becomes challenging due to limited morphological changes during the lengthy L3 larval phase of development. To address this gap, we used transcriptomic profiling of blowfly maggots to generate molecular markers that specify their age. To achieve this, we characterized maggot weight, behavior, and mRNA in 10-hour increments during development. We initially found that the weight of the maggots increased from 70 to 100 hours and then slightly decreased after 110 hours. In addition, we identified the time frame of the behavioral transition between feeding and the post-feeding wandering stage, occurring between 100 and 120 hours.  Second, we built a chromosomal-scale Phormia regina genome annotated with long mRNA reads to provide a reliable database to uncover transcriptomic signatures during larval development. Lastly, we applied differential gene expression analysis (DEGs), weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and the generalized linear model (GLM) to identify six candidate genes that were consistent across the three statistical analyses that are useful for delineating the age of otherwise indeterminate L3 maggots. By identifying specific genes as markers for age estimation in blowfly maggots, our findings create the context for practical applications to improve postmortem interval estimation.

 

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