This article reports on the evaluation of the RapidHIT System for reliably genotyping reference samples, in order to determine whether it can further reduce the turnaround time and labor involved in generating DNA profiles from biological evidence collected at a crime scene.
The RapidHIT system provided reliable STR profiles from reference buccal swabs in approximately 90 min with nominal "hands-on" sample loading time, with no evidence of contamination between samples. The overall success rate of typing buccal swabs was comparable to standard typing systems. In the event of a failed run due to instrument failure, the swab can be removed from the cartridge and reanalyzed in the RapidHIT system or with standard STR genotyping workflows. The RapidHIT (IntegenX; Pleasanton, CA, USA) system is an automated instrument that is configured to perform DNA extraction, bead-based DNA normalization, amplification, electrophoresis of PCR amplicons, and data analysis of five reference swabs simultaneously. (Publisher abstract modified)