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Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction
Extraction of Nucleic Acid from a range of specimens is an
integral and essential step in many molecular biological
techniques, most notably those for NA Amplification, including
PCR, Strand Displacement Amplifciation (SDA) and ligase chain
reaction (LCR).
There are two main methedologies involved in NA extraction –
both use a solid phase either in the form of (i) particles
(often magnetically charged); (ii) membranes (generally silica).
The basic principle is the same in both of these – to capture,
wash away unwanted molecules and then recover the purified
nucleic acid into elution buffer.
There are many factors which are of importance when considering
which automated extraction platforms should be adopted. One of
the most important ones is the required throughput. Automated
systems can extract from a single sample up to 96 samples in one
run. For some applications, such as molecular genetic testing,
relatively small batches of samples are processed at any time.
For some other purposes such as HIV Viral Load testing, the
batches can be considerably higher.
Some of technical considerations we at Biotron suggest while
considering automated extraction systems are:-
Typical workflow of Magnetic Extraction Procedure
Schematic Illustration of Common DNA Purification
Typical Workflow of Spin Column Extraction Procedure
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