Combination of 768-well microplate array diagonal gel electrophoresis with duplex PCR of X and Y chromosome markers for quality control of epidemiological DNA banks

Large DNA banks for human epidemiological studies have become an increasingly important research tool. The power of genotype-phenotype studies is dependent both on the quality of phenotyping and of genotyping and of correct linking of phenotypes to genotypes. Samples must be tracked through numerous steps between subject or patient and post-genotypic data. Only one phenotype, sex, has a perfect and binary correlation with genotype. In mixed sex studies, it may be advantageous for purposes of quality control to keep sexes mixed during the steps from acquisition to DNA bank, in order to be able to check later for sample swaps. We have designed a duplex PCR combining an amplicon from MAOA marking the X chromosome and an amplicon from DDX3Y marking the Y chromosome. We combined this with a simple economical palmtop sized 768-well microplate compatible electrophoresis system developed in-house for examination of duplex PCR products. We applied this quality control test in the validation of two DNA banks.