Single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping provides a supplement for conventional short tandem repeats-based kits currently used for human identification. GenPlex (Applied Biosystems (AB), Foster City, CA) is an SNP-genotyping kit based on a multiplex of 48 informative, autosomal SNPs from the SNPforID Consortium. Our objective was to setup, implement, and validate a small and affordable automated liquid-handling robot for forensic casework samples (buccal swaps on FTA-paper and Qiagen purified blood). The reaction scheme consisted of numerous steps and was cumbersome to perform consistently manually. Automation was accomplished with a Biomek-3000 (Beckmann Coulter) laboratory-automated workstation using five in-house-developed methods. All methods allowed the user to select the number of subsequent injections to the capillary electrophoresis instrument (ABI 3130xl, AB) enabling processing of both partial and full plates. A total of 286 samples were analyzed in duplicates with the GenPlex reaction using the Biomek-3000. The results were compared with those obtained from the same samples using the SNaPshot(AB) single-base extension system. Full concordance of the results was obtained in all but one sample. The results demonstrate that the Biomek-3000 can perform a series of complex reactions leading to highly consistent forensic genetic SNP-typing results
Udgivelsesdato: 2008/10