Rapid nucleic acid extraction from skin biopsies using a point-of-care device

Abstract

Sample processing is often the rate-limiting step for point-of-care nucleic acid testing, especially for large, robust tissues such as skin biopsies, which can be used to diagnose a variety of dermatological diseases. Extraction of nucleic acids from these samples often relies on lengthy enzymatic digestions, increasing the time to result and reducing the potential impact of rapid molecular diagnostic approaches. To address this, we have developed BLENDER, a device for rapid nucleic acid extraction from tissue biopsies that combines bead-beating homogenization with simultaneous sample heating for enzymatic lysis. Our device can produce a complete DNA yield from a 3 mm cylindrical skin biopsy with only a 15 minute extraction compared to 4 hours when using a commercially available extraction protocol. Decreasing sample-processing time for tissue biopsies could reduce time-to-result for downstream analysis, enabling faster point-of-care diagnosis of solid cancers in limited resource settings.