Parallel Computing with DNA Forensics Data

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) of single nu-cleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provides advanced DNA forensics capabilities including complex mixture analysis. This paper describes a scalable pipeline for large DNA forensics data which can either be utilized on a standalone system or can also be used on high performance computing systems. This pipeline enables parallelization of processing of multiple samples. Surveillance modules detect completed sequencing datasets on both Illumina and Ion Torrent platforms. GrigoraSNPs is used for automated SNP allele calling from FASTQ files. These results are automatically loaded into the IdPrism DNA mixture analysis system. HTS SNP data analysis typically completes in roughly 7 minutes for 100M sequences, including SNP allele calling, enabling rapid access to the results within the IdPrism system for identification and complex mixture analysis of multiplexed samples.