Abstract
The establishment of offender DNA databases is critical to future crime prevention. Many countries have established databases or are in the process of passing database legislation. With new legislation the number of samples that will be collected could begin to exceed the testing capacity of many labs leading to backlogs. Two bottlenecks in the workflow that can contribute to a backlog of samples are DNA purification and PCR cycling time. The average purification time is approximately 2 h and the average cycling time of current STR kits is approximately 3 h. To address the second problem we investigated alternative DNA enzymes to decrease PCR cycling time. It was necessary to balance the increase in time to result against the need to address factors which can impact interpretation of a DNA profile such as: generation of stutter products, non-template addition, intra-locus balance, accuracy, and species specificity. Initial feasibility studies demonstrate that alternative enzymes can decrease PCR cycling time. The data show that this assay can increase throughput, providing results in less than 2 h. However, decreasing PCR cycling time will have an affect on multiplex STR performance.
Published Version
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