Product News: Diagenode Introduces Innovative Bioruptor® Pico for Micro-Volume Chromatin and DNA Shearing

Diagenode, Inc., a leading global provider of complete solutions for epigenetics research, has announced the launch of the Bioruptor® Pico, an innovative “all-in-one” sonication device for chromatin and DNA shearing. Diagenode’s Bioruptor® sonication devices use Adaptive Cavitation Technology (ACT) to create gentle, focused mechanical stress to shear biological samples in a temperature controlled environment, highly effective for chromatin shearing, DNA & RNA shearing, cell lysis and tissue homogenization. The Bioruptor® is the most cited line of sonication devices with over 700 peer-reviewed publications.

The new Bioruptor® Pico represents a new breakthrough as an all-in-one shearing system optimized for shearing micro-volumes of 5 μl to larger volumes of up to 2 ml. This wide range enables a large variety of applications such as DNA shearing for next generation sequencing library preparation, RNA shearing, and chromatin shearing. It has been widely noted that shearing is a critical step in a number of applications. For example, the data accuracy from applications such as next generation sequencing library preparation, chromatin immunoprecipitation, and ChIP-seq depends on high-quality sample shearing and fragmentation.

"The Diagenode Bioruptor® Pico has been designed to provide the consistency, yields, and best range of fragment sizes, aspects that are critical for optimal sequencing library preparation such as in ChIP-seq and chromatin shearing” said Didier Allaer, CEO of Diagenode, “We remain committed to the epigenetics market, providing unique epigenetic solutions and innovating our line of shearing devices as the market requires increasingly smaller volumes for shearing.” In addition, the new instrument allows cost-effective shearing with sample multiplexing and simultaneous sonication of 6 to12 samples."

Manuela Saathoff, Ph.D., Product Manager for Bioruptor® stated, "The new system is smaller, lighter, and much faster than our previous models. Also the Bioruptor® Pico offers researchers flexibility for their shearing needs. Now, with just one device, you can shear chromatin and DNA in both small and large volumes.”

Regarding next generation sequencing, she also added, “for next generation sequencing library preparation, the Bioruptor® Pico achieves optimal fragmentation with the desired narrow size distribution and high quality and yields of double-stranded DNA crucial for sequencing accuracy and success.”

Diagenode has released data that can viewed here that exemplify the performance of the instrument for chromatin and DNA shearing. The company also offers a number of epigenetics products that can be used downstream in the ChIP and ChIP-seq workflow after shearing with the Bioruptor® Pico. These include highly-validated ChIP-seq antibodies, ChIP-seq kits for only 10,000 cells, and the IP-Star Compact, a unique epigenetics automation platform.