Hisashi Hagiwara, Toshiyuki Sakurai, Toshio Yoshida
Hitachi Electronics Engineering Co. Ltd., Tokyo Japan

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Initially, we developed an automated fluorescent DNA sequencer (the Hitachi SQ 5500 ^tm and Amersham Vistra ^tm ). Both DNA sequencers have these features: 1) Automatically detects and displays the fluorograph image in electrophoresis at real time. 2) 40 sample (max.) can be measured simultaneously. 3) 300 bp long/2hrs, 600 bp long/6hrs. 4) Disposable shark’s tooth comb made from paper. The paper shark’s tooth combs absorb the buffer solution, so that samples run without leaking, side-by-side. 5) Positioning laser beam is not necessary. All you need do is set the gel plate in the appointed place. 6) 1 dye fluorescein system can give precise results without differences of migration time among samples.

Then we developed the fluorescent fragment analyzer (Hitachi SF 5100 ^tm ) and image analysis software (Fraglys^tm). We presented preliminary studies on the separation of the STR loci (TH01, TPOX, D3S1744, D1S80). We found that the 9.3 and 10 alleles of the TH01 allelic ladder differ by 1 nucleotide in length, and D1S80 of 800 base pairs in length. The results with this system were compared with silver staining methods.