Low volume amplification and sequencing of mitochondrial DNA on a chemically structured chip.

Low volume (LV) amplification (1 microL) of nuclear DNA (nucDNA) on a chemically structured chip is an appropriate and highly sensitive method to simultaneously amplify amelogenin and 15 forensically relevant short tandem repeats (STR). In this study, a combined method using on-chip LV amplification of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and subsequent on-chip LV cycle sequencing was established to obtain a method, which is sensitive and robust enough to allow reliable analysis of DNA amounts representing the single cell level. All the necessary steps of the procedure--except for the purification of the sequencing products--were accomplished within the same final 2-microL reaction volume.