Automating DNA isolation from cereal crops with Tecan’s magnetic bead technology
29 Jun 2008Molecular biologists at the Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry Laimburg in Northern Italy, have developed a semi-automated procedure for extracting and isolating high quality DNA from cereal crops, using the Te-MagS™ magnetic separation module from Tecan. The researchers are performing large-scale microsatellite marker analysis to genetically characterize local cereal landraces, in order to establish and maintain a germplasm collection for these crops.
“Isolation of DNA from plant tissue represents a crucial step for the quality and outcome of subsequent downstream applications, such as PCR, sequencing or genotyping, but this step can also be a considerable bottleneck for extensive plant genotyping studies,” explained Dr Sanja Baric, head of the Molecular Biology Section at the research centre. “The semi-automated magnetic bead-based separation procedure that we have established with the Te-MagS has at least doubled our throughput and more than halved the manual labor time compared to conventional cetyl-trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)-based protocols.”
Dr Baric’s set-up includes a Tecan Freedom EVO® 100 liquid handling workstation with an integrated Te-MagS module for fully automated DNA isolation from manually prepared plant lysates. The final DNA elutes from 48 samples can be prepared within 90 minutes, and are of sufficient quality to give accurate amplification of many different microsatellite loci.
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Te-MagS™ Magnetic Bead Separation
TecanThe Te-MagS™ module provides easy and effective automation of your magnetic bead separation method on Tecan pipetting platforms. The device is specifically designed for the isolation of nucleic acids, proteins and whole cells from complex mixtures. The technology allows fully automated process set-up and is ideal for any multiple applications in the life science industry that need to improve throughput. Te-MagS includes moveable magnets for magnetic-bead-based separation tasks as well as an optional heating block for temperature-dependent lysis or elution steps. The device can easily be integrated on Freedom EVO® workstations. No external power supply is necessary. Straightforward software control for magnet movements and block heating is provided by Tecan’s Pipetting Software Packages. Te-MagS highlights: Te-MagS can easily be configured to handle either plates or tubes (96-well microplate or up to 48 1.5 ml Sarstedt tubes). The unique Magnetic Mixing function increases throughput and reduces disposable tip consumption. Improved yields and enhanced flexibility by variable positioning of magnetic beads. Automated exchange of tubes or plates on the Te-MagS allows multiple batch processes without user intervention. Te-MagS technology is compatible with magnetic-bead-based applications from numerous kit vendors such as Promega®, Life TechnologiesTM, MACHEREY-NAGEL and others. Te-MagS applications: Purification of genomic DNA from blood, body fluids, cells, tissue, micro-organisms, food or plants Purification of polyA+ mRNA by oligo-dT beads Isolation of viral nucleic acids from blood plasma or serum Purification of PCR products and cycle sequencing products Purification of recombinant proteins with His•Tag or GST•Tag magnetic beads Accumulation of cells or cellular components by antibodycoated beads