Making the Most of Lateral Flow Immunochromatographic Tests: An Efficient Protocol to Recover DNA

Abstract

Lateral flow immunochromatographic (LFI) tests are widely used in both biomedical and forensic sciences for different applications. In forensic sciences, their main use is to detect body fluids at crime scenes. However, there are situations in which the amount of potential biological evidence is so low that DNA extraction is favored with respect to the identification of body fluids. Here, an efficient and quick protocol is presented to integrate the detection of body fluids through LFI with DNA extraction from a sample swab and buffer, providing a complete characterization of the biological evidence. This protocol is a modification of a general DNA extraction silica-based kit, whose main application is for blood and tissues. Thus, it could be carried out in different settings (forensic labs, hospitals, other testing labs) without the necessity of buying a specific kit for swabs. The validation of this protocol is supported by the results presented here and previous publications from our group, obtaining DNA in good quantity and with good quality. This proves the potential application of the protocol in both forensic scenarios, to fully characterize biological evidence, and biomedical settings, to molecularly confirm the results of LFI tests.