Automated Purification of DNA from Large Samples: A Study of Effectiveness and Labor Efficiency

Liquid-Handling Robotic Workstations for Functional Genomics

“…These tasks are well performed by molecular biological workstations, which are capable to accommodate special equipment such as vacuum manifolds, magnetic separators, shakers, incubators or indexed centrifuges on, beneath or under the work deck. Examples for genomics specific tasks reported in the literature include identification and picking of colonies, 15 purification of DNA from large samples, 16 automated sample-preparation technologies in genome sequencing projects, 17 high throughput probe production for DNA microarrays, 18 plasmid purification, 19 high throughput DNA extraction methods for PCR, 20 automated cycle sequencing, 21 purification of BigDye Ter-minator fluorescent DNA sequencing reaction, 22 purification of PCR products, 23 automated agarose gel electrophoresis, 24 high throughput RNA purification, 25,26 and printing of microarrays using liquid-handling robots. 27 However, some tasks are difficult to automate at all, such as initial sample (e.g.…”