Investigating the potential of body fluid identification using the Oxford Nanopore MinION

ABSTRACT

As the interest in massively parallel sequencing (MPS) in forensic science continues to grow, the technology available to do such work is rapidly developing. An instrument of particular interest is the Oxford Nanopore MinION, a portable USB sequencer. In addition to shorter library preparation time, the MinION sequencer produces ultra-long reads allowing for sequencing of full-length transcripts. Direct RNA and cDNA kits eliminate the need for PCR. However, PCR-free methods require relatively high amounts of input RNA, which could be problematic with the small, degraded samples common in forensic casework. We have initially assessed the performance and feasibility of the MinION for forensic RNA using salivary gland and tongue RNA.

KEYWORDS:

• Forensic
• mRNA body fluid identification
• sequencing
• Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr S.A. Harbison for critically reviewing this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ESR Strategic Science Investment Fund from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.