Successful validation of a fully automated sample lysis workstation

Abstract The Netherlands Forensic Institute recently validated a fully automated system for sample lysis, the AutoLys workstation and AutoLys tubes, developed in collaboration with Hamilton Robotics. We have carried out the developmental validation of the AutoLys system and concluded it offers a solution to drastically reduce user-errors, increase DNA yields, gain in productivity, while maintaining quality. This article reports on the study setup and discusses the results of comparing the AutoLys workstation to the conventional (manual) method. The AutoLys system proved to successfully process all commonly found forensic sample types, producing high quality extracts, containing on average 12.1% more DNA than manually extracted samples (as determined by qPCR and STR-profiling). The optimized robotic protocol minimizes the risk on cross-contamination (no cross-contamination detected in over 500 samples tested) and retains the flexibility to adjust chemically relevant variables specific to a laboratory's individual requirements. The fully automated process enables complete sample-tracking, drastically reducing the risk on user-errors. The NFI is currently validating an on-deck magnetic bead-based purification of the lysates.