DNA Extraction Facility

The CTRC has a long history of extracting high quality gDNA from human blood. In addition to blood, we have considerable expertise in extracting nucleic acid from any tissue or cell-type. We offer both manual or automated cellular DNA and RNA extraction from human clinical or animal model biospecimens.

Other services include generating Epstein-Barr Virus transformed cell lines, isolating PBMCs, serum, plasma, cell pellets, and free-circulating DNA from whole blood.

Our lab has expertise in isolating cell-type specific cell populations from blood.

AUTOMATED NUCLEIC ACID ISOLATION

The CTRC uses a PerkinElmer Chemagic 360 Instrument.

Advantages

Our approach has several advantages, including:

• unique chemistry—magnetic bead-based isolation system,
• extracts DNA from large volumes of blood (up to 10ml per sample),
• a highly efficient nucleic acid extraction (DNA and RNA),
• isolates large fragments of DNA up to 200kb,
• simple moving parts that do not require centrifugation,
• and is LIMS compatible and scans barcodes.

Watch a Video About PerkinElmer Chemagic.

Recent Results

Figure below: Average DNA yield from blood.

The Chemagic 360 efficiently extracts DNA from blood. In this figure, we selected 100 random blood samples that were processed by the Chemagic 360. Note that DNA yield depends on starting blood volume, blood quality, patient-specific differences, and other factors.

Expected Yields

Nucleic Acid Isolation Table

Extracting DNA from Other Sources

• The CTRC will extract DNA or RNA from any conceivable tissue- or cell-type, including brain, heart, lungs etc. Please contact us if you have any specific needs.

QUALITY CONTROL OF NUCLEIC ACIDS

The CTRC assesses Nuclei Acid sample quality and quantity using four approaches:

• Spectrophotometry (ThermoFisher Scientific Nanodrop One)
• Fluorometric Quantitation (ThermoFisher Scientific Qubit 3)
• Standard Gel Electrophoresis
• Automated Electrophoresis (The CTRC uses an Agilent 2200 TapeStation housed in the High-throughput Genomics Core