It is recommended that laboratories store their consumables in such a way as to limit exposure to the environment and consider effective pretreatment.  Current pretreatment methods, such as autoclaving and UV cross-linking, may not be entirely effective since they may not penetrate all surfaces of the consumable.

The FSS has reported ethylene oxide gas to be extremely effective in removing DNA. Ethylene oxide is commonly used to sterilize medical equipment, but this technology is not currently used by manufacturers of the consumables used in forensic DNA analysis. 

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