I watched a CSI episode (“Living Legend”) from last season yesterday, and they claimed the reason that a victim’s skeleton glowed was because the man had taken tetracycline to treat his acne. Is this really something that happens?
I haven’t taken tetracycline for acne, but it was given to me often enough as a small child to permanently stain my teeth. So, will my skeleton glow under the right lights when I’m dead?
Yes
It appears that tetracycline does cause a characteristic fluorescence, particularly in areas of new bone growth, and so the effect is most noticeable in young mammals (that particular link is to an abstract on coyotes, actually). A quick read seems to say that the fluorescent molecule is the tetracycline itself; unmetabolised and incorporated into the bone.
Actually I don’t know how long the effect would last for; the coyote abstract seems to suggest at least 5 months, but it might be significantly longer.
I’ve only quickly read some abstracts though, but this is pretty interesting stuff and could be quite significant in diagnosing/treating/following up on bone development and illnesses.
I Googled “tetracycline bone fluorescence”, BTW.
I just found something else, suggesting that fluorescence can last at least 6 months in rats.
I haven’t seen the CSI episode in question, so likely the effect they had was exaggerated, but like most things on the show, there is some basis in fact!