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Updated: Oct 3, 2025
Development of a Lateral Flow Immunochromatographic Strip for Rapid and Quantitative Detection of Small Molecule Compounds
Published on: November 13, 2021
A simplified protocol for the detection of blood, saliva, and semen from a single biological trace using
Patrick Basset1, Prisca Blandin2, Annalisa Grini2
1Forensic Genetics Unit, University Centre of Legal Medicine Lausanne-Geneva, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Chemin de la Vulliette 4, Lausanne 25, CH-1000, Switzerland. Patrick.Basset@chuv.ch.
Insights
Forensic scientists can now use a single universal buffer for multiple body fluid tests, including blood, saliva, and semen. This streamlines analysis and ensures DNA profiles are from the exact same specimen.
Area of Science:
- Forensic Science
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
Background:
- Immunochromatographic tests are crucial for identifying body fluids like blood, saliva, and semen in forensic investigations.
- Current methods often require specific buffer solutions for each test, complicating the analysis of samples containing multiple body fluid types.
- The inability to use a single buffer for multiple tests hinders the analysis of the exact same specimen for different body fluid types.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the efficacy of a novel universal buffer (RSID™-universal buffer) for simultaneous immunochromatographic testing of multiple body fluids.
- To determine if the universal buffer can be used for blood, saliva, and semen detection without compromising test accuracy or DNA profile quality.
- To assess the compatibility of the universal buffer with HEXAGON OBTI, RSID-saliva, and PSA Semiquant tests, alongside spermatozoa detection.
Main Methods:
- A single eluate was used to perform three distinct immunochromatographic tests: HEXAGON OBTI, RSID-saliva, and PSA Semiquant.
- Spermatozoa detection was also conducted using the same eluate.
- The universal buffer was employed for all analyses, and results were compared to independent testing protocols.
Main Results:
- The RSID™-universal buffer yielded results comparable to those obtained when each immunochromatographic test was performed independently.
- The use of the universal buffer did not negatively impact the quality of DNA profiles obtained from the specimens.
- This unified approach allows for presumptive testing and DNA analysis on the exact same biological specimen.
Conclusions:
- The RSID™-universal buffer is a viable and effective tool for the simultaneous detection of multiple body fluids using immunochromatographic tests.
- This protocol simplifies forensic analysis by enabling multiple tests from a single specimen, improving efficiency and data integrity.
- The universal buffer preserves DNA quality, ensuring reliable downstream genetic analysis.
Abstract:
The detection of body fluids (e.g., blood, saliva or semen) provides information that is important both for the investigation and for the choice of the analytical protocols. Because of their sensitivity, specificity, as well as their simplicity of use, immunochromatographic tests are widely applied. These tests target different body fluids and generally require specific buffer solutions. If one needs to investigate whether the material is of a specific nature (e.g., blood), this is fine. However, if the material can also contain other material (e.g., saliva or semen) then the use of different tests can be problematic. Indeed, if the different tests require different buffers, it will not be possible to perform all tests on the exact same specimen.In this study, we assess the use of the RSID™-universal buffer to perform three immunochromatographic tests (HEXAGON OBTI, RSID-saliva, and PSA Semiquant) as well as spermatozoa detection. We use the same eluate for the detection of all three body fluids. The proposed protocol provides similar results to those obtained when each test is conducted independently. Furthermore, it does not affect the quality of the DNA profiles. The main advantage of this protocol is that the results of the presumptive test(s) and of the DNA analyses are representative of the exact same specimen.
