Nucleic acid isolation is a cornerstone technology of molecular biology. Many laboratories use manual purification protocols for this purpose, but they have four disadvantages. Nucleic acid isolation is a cornerstone technology in molecular biology, providing the starting material for most wet laboratory applications. However, separating the materials is only half the battle. Purification of isolated nucleic acids is equally important for reliable and consistent data as well as overall experimental success. For example:

Remove inhibitors and impurities that may interfere with downstream reactions, such as PCR and reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Inhibitors and impurities can arise from the sample itself (e.g., in the case of complex environmental samples), chemicals used during the separation (e.g., detergents, organic solvents), and/or contamination in the work area. Pure starting materials are critical for NGS sample preparation. Any impurities or unwanted materials (e.g., primer-dimers) present during target enrichment, library construction, and size selection can cause artifacts that render the sequencing data meaningless, potentially costing a lot of time and money. losses.

Purification of required PCR amplicons, plasmids, restriction digested DNA fragments, and RNA (e.g., small RNA species) from reaction mixtures and agarose gels is a prerequisite technique for a variety of applications, including cloning, genetic modification, RNA and DNA characterization, in vitro transcription and translation, etc. Manual purification protocols have their drawbacks Today, molecular biologists have a wide selection of easy-to-use kits to choose from that allow for seamless nucleic acid isolation and purification from virtually any sample type imaginable. However, while many of these kits are very effective at purifying nucleic acids, they are often designed for manual operation, which poses several problems:

contamination risk. As with all manual workflows involving pipetting, manual purification carries the risk of cross-contamination between samples. This risk can be reduced by using multichannel pipetting, but this option is only available for plate-based protocols. Even with multichannel pipetting, errors sometimes occur, especially the fatigue that can arise when handling relatively large numbers of samples over multiple runs. Difficult to scale. For protocols in test tube format, staff are often limited by the number of test tubes that can be processed at one time in centrifuges and other necessary equipment. A common solution is to process large numbers of samples in batches, but this approach is slow and requires a lot of hands-on work. Therefore, manual decontamination is not a viable option for large-scale operations. Error prone. In addition to the risk of sample carryover, manual protocols present other risks of error. Imagine a scenario where you have labeled 24 sample tubes, but while sterilizing the bench, the labels wash off halfway through the protocol. This is an easy trap to fall into, but difficult to recover from, when trying to keep contamination risks low. This situation could ruin the entire experiment. time consuming. Short incubation steps and brief centrifugation spins result in very little operational time per run, while the need to batch process samples takes up more of your valuable time. If purification is a regular part of your lab workflow, it can help your lab members make better use of their time. Automation eliminates manual process errors and increases speed and productivity The above issues may individually or in combination affect data quality and experimental output. If you are working with nucleic acids, you already know the importance of purification. Choosing an automated setup will allow you to solve problems associated with manual protocols, help you obtain consistent data, minimize errors, increase speed and throughput, and leave you with more actionable time to spend on other, more exciting On the laboratory task! Your lab may even save money in the long run by investing in automation.

So what are you waiting for? With a pipetting robot and the right protocol, you can look forward to automating the following procedures:

PCR product purification Plasmid purification DNA and RNA cleanup after enzymatic and labeling reactions NGS library cleanup PCR inhibitor removal And much more! Getting Started As we mentioned above, when you have a robot at your fingertips, anything is possible. Most purification procedures can be adapted for automation. All you need to do is figure out the scenario, but you don't need to do it alone. If you are considering automation for your laboratory, please contact us. We'd be happy to help you complete it.