METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FRACTIONATING GENETICALLY DISTINCT CELLS AND CELLULAR COMPONENTS

摘要

The present invention relates to a method of processing forensic trace or touch DNA evidence in order to differentially label cells, and then isolate them into distinct fractions which can be processed using standard downstream DNA profiling methods. A mixture of cells and/or cellular components in fluid suspension are first labeled with one or more markers which bind specifically to genetic sequences of interest, and which can be detected optically. The labeled cells/nuclei are placed into a fluidic cartridge, and are transported via fluid flow to an inspection and separation region, observed and identified according to their labels using optical microscopy, and are moved to output channels corresponding to the different labels, degree of labeling, or combination of labels, and to a different subset of possible genetic profiles. The separated cell fractions are extracted from the cartridge via their respective outputs, and can be genetically profiled via short- tandem-repeat (STR) analysis.