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2 December 2023 Forensic analysis of mosquito blood meal digestion process and the impact of heroin opiate: determination of the post-feeding interval as a PMI estimation
Hend M. Alharbi, Yasser A. Elnakady, Badr A. Aldahmash, Reem Alajmi, Zeid A. ALOthman, Ahmed-Yacine Badjah-Hadj-Ahmed, Ahmad Aqel, Ashraf M. Ahmed
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Abstract

Females of some mosquito species are anthropophilic, as they feed on human blood to support egg production and, hence, are forensically valuable if found at a crime scene. The present study investigated the blood meal digestion process in Culex pipiens L. both with and without heroin and proposed a method for estimating the post-feeding interval (PFI). Mosquitoes were fed on a control mouse, a heroin-injected mouse, or in vitro heroin-treated mouse blood. The blood meal digestion was then investigated at different hours post-feeding. Data showed that the blood meal size ingested by control mosquitoes was 0.681 ± 0.04 mg/mosquito and was completely digested within 45 h post-feeding. An estimation of the PFI was proposed in terms of the rate of hemoglobin (Hb) digestion. The blood meal size of the mosquitoes fed on the in vitro heroin-treated blood and the heroin-injected mouse was 0.96 ± 0.06 and 0.79 ± 0.01 mg/mosquito and was completely digested within 50 and 55 h post-feeding, respectively. The digestion of Hb started similarly in all experimental mosquitoes until 10 h post-feeding, after which it significantly decreased in heroin-treated blood meals compared with the control ones. This may suggest that heroin impacted the digestion process, as it took an extra 5–10 h to complete. These findings could be valuable in the forensic context since an estimation of PFI is proposed as a potential estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI). However, care should be taken as heroin in the host blood has significantly impacted the overall digestion process and, hence, may bias the PFI/PMI estimation.

Hend M. Alharbi, Yasser A. Elnakady, Badr A. Aldahmash, Reem Alajmi, Zeid A. ALOthman, Ahmed-Yacine Badjah-Hadj-Ahmed, Ahmad Aqel, and Ashraf M. Ahmed "Forensic analysis of mosquito blood meal digestion process and the impact of heroin opiate: determination of the post-feeding interval as a PMI estimation," Journal of Medical Entomology 61(1), 74-86, (2 December 2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjad153
Received: 18 September 2023; Accepted: 15 November 2023; Published: 2 December 2023
JOURNAL ARTICLE
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KEYWORDS
blood meal
digestion
forensic
heroin
mosquito
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