I was thinking either ethanol or isopropyl alcohol precipitation would work but I can't seem to locate a good protocol for doing this. I need the wells to be dry because the plates I'm working with are going to be shipped out from my company to others. I do not want to risk shipping the plates with liquid in the wells because of possible cross contamination. Also, what would be the best buffer/media for the person receiving the dried DNA plate to use for rehydrating the DNA in the wells, would TE buffer be the best option? It would be greatly appreciated if someone could point me in the right direction to where I could find a good protocol for doing this...if there is one. Hopefully, I worded this ok! Thanks in advance!
Isopropanol precipitation would certainly work. However, simply heating your plate at 55-65 degrees Celsius (in an incubator) until dry would be the easiest. Re-hydration could be with water or TE.
For isopropanol precipitation: add sodium acetate to 0.3 M and add 0.6 volumes of isopropanol. Mix. Spin >=5000xg for 10 minutes and decant the supernatant. Wash the pellets once with 70% ethanol and allow to dry.
Thank you for your answer. I guess I didn't realize that after eluting into the DNA collection plate that you could just throw it in the incubator and be done. I do have a follow up question; what would the shelf life be on the dried out plate? I was planning on heat sealing the plates in heat sealable bags for storage and shipping but I'm curious on how long they would last before needing rehydrated. Also, would the addition of something like Biomatrica's (DNAstable) be beneficial in any way to the dried plate or is there really no need to add anything to it? Thanks again.
It should be good dry for a couple months. I have left plasmid DNA dry for >5 years at room temperature before and it was not very good anymore. I had to transform it (which still worked very well) and do new plasmid preps to have usable DNA. Basically, don't leave it a room temperature forever. Real long term storage is best at -20 C in frozen liquid.
Note that you could also dry your DNA in the hood. The wind from the hood will accelerate the drying even though it would be at room temperature.
The Biomatrica's (DNAstable) might be good, however, I have never used it before so I cannot comment.
I am assuming you are talking about plasmid DNA. If you are working with bacterial genomic DNA, drying for a long time may not be a good idea because it might be difficult to re-dissolve the DNA.
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