The polymerase system I am using is Thermo Phusion Hot-Start II, a pfu-based recombinant Pol with a reversible affibody. The reason that I don't want to purify the reaction mixtures after thermocycling is that the target product is only 70 bp, which is too small to be retained by most spin column systems (the exception being the Qiagen Nucleotide Removal Kit, but in that case, 70 bp is the bottom limit, right at the cut-off). I've been gel extracting the desired band, but for work-flow reasons, I'd like a better idea of how long my un-purified reaction mixtures can be stored at -20C (or -30C, or -80C) before being gel-extracted.

My instinct is that the reversible affibody and low temperatures (combined with loss of enzyme activity due to damage from freezing) will prevent the enzyme's proofreading domain from significantly degrading the target product. The real concern, then, is that the buffer conditions may not be ideal for storage. Thermo won't disclose their buffer composition (trade secrets and all), but I can't imagine that it would be damaging in the short term. Any thoughts are appreciated :)

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