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Since its inception in 1994, Zymo Research has been proudly serving the scientific community by providing innovative, reliable, and high quality research tools at affordable prices. Our vision..."The Beauty of Science is to Make Things Simple" is now truer than ever. Whether it's epigenetics, DNA, RNA, E. coli, or yeast based research, our philosophy remains the same: To provide the highest quality products in the industry while ensuring they are both simple to use and reliable in their performance.

Zymo Research is historically recognized for its innovation of high quality nucleic acid purification technologies. Under the branding DNA Purification Made Simple™ and RNA Purification Made Simple™, our technologies are pushing the limits of what is possible with nucleic acid isolation. As The Epigenetics Company™, Zymo Research has also received much attention for its rapidly expanding portfolio of epigenetics products and services. It is our objective to develop and provide the most comprehensive set of tools for DNA, RNA, and epigenetic research and analysis available today. Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific publications from researchers around the world feature our technologies. Through innovation, our scientists have made streamlined DNA methylation detection possible, pioneered the micro-elution column for DNA and RNA purification, developed the simplest and the most sophisticated methods for high-quality plasmid DNA purification, and patented the first RNA purification directly from Trizol® without phase separation among many other leading technologies in the industry.

How Zymo-Spin columns from Zymo Research solve your 3 most pressing problems in the cleanup and isolation of DNA & RNA

Posted in: DNA / RNA Manipulation and Analysis

Content sponsored by Zymo Research

How Zymo-Spin columns from Zymo Research solve your 3 most pressing problems in the cleanup and isolation of DNA & RNA

Whatever you use your precious DNA preps for (e.g., cloning, sequencing, arrays), one thing is for sure: You need clean, concentrated DNA to make sure you get the best results from your downstream applications.

But that is easier said than done since because traditional DNA & RNA cleanup and gel extraction kits from most other companies are plagued by three problems:

1. Contaminants including salts and detergents can co-elute with DNA and RNA and interfere with your experiments.  This is primarily due to carryover of binding and/or wash buffer residues trapped in the spin column and is typified by a 230 nm absorbance peak upon NanoDrop analysis.

2. Low final concentrations of eluted DNA & RNA, because ?50µl elution volumes often dilute your sample more than you’d like.

3. Tedious and time-consuming procedures, resulting from spin… after spin….. after spin………

Sound familiar?

If so, here’s some good news: Innovative Zymo-Spin column technology from Zymo Research solves all of those problems, providing you a reliable tool for contamination-free, concentrated DNA & RNA from liquid samples or DNA from gel slices.

The secret is in the column’s design. Zymo-Spin columns are specifically engineered to have a smaller more compact binding resin than the spin columns from other suppliers. They look something like this:

How Zymo-Spin columns from Zymo Research solve your 3 most pressing problems in the cleanup and isolation of DNA & RNA

This clever piece of engineering solves the three main problems you commonly encounter with DNA & RNA cleanup and gel extraction kits from other companies. Here’s how:

 1. Zymo-Spin = Zero Retention = Ultra-Pure DNA

The column design used for most other DNA & RNA purification kits have a dead space that results in a 2-3 µl retention volume after spinning — that’s the volume you simply can’t coax through the filter bed, no matter what you do.

That’s bad news for your “purified” sample, because it means that 2-3 µl of binding/wash buffer residue stays on the column following your last wash – even if you give it that extra spin.

And when you elute, guess where that 2-3 µl of residue ends up? Yep, in your sample. This is the reason for those high A230 nm readings you always get on the NanoDrop, and may explain why your experiments don’t always work as planned.

But the zero retention volume of the uniquely-designed Zymo-Spin columns means that buffer carryover can be completely eliminated. So after the last wash step, your column is clean and free from wash buffer (or anything else for that matter).

This means that your DNA or RNA sample is eluted into clean buffer or water, giving you super-clean assay-ready DNA for the best possible downstream results.

2. Small Binding Resin = Tiny Elution Volume = Concentrated DNA

Those hefty filter beds in the spin columns from traditional DNA & RNA purification kits take a lot of wetting. That’s why the optimal elution volume is 50 µl and greater in most kits.  You will find that eluting with those large volumes translates into dilute solutions of DNA & RNA at the end, especially if your starting concentration was low to begin with.

With Zymo-Spin columns, the smaller binding surface focused in the tip of the column means your elution volume can be as low as 6 µl, without affecting the total amount of DNA bound to the column. This lets you elute your DNA in whatever volume gives the final concentration that suits you and your downstream applications.  It is a common to find Zymo kits featuring Zymo-Spin columns being used to concentrate DNA that was initially isolated using other methods.

3. Compact Binding Resin = Easy Washing = Fewer & Shorter Spins

There’s another problem with those large binding resins from traditional columns: you sure have to spin them for a long time to flush (almost) all of your buffer out at each step, and numerous washes are almost always required. Those repeated spins add up making routine procedures longer than they need to be.

The compact binding surface in Zymo-Spin columns need only 30 seconds of centrifugation to get the entire volume of buffer through. This makes the entire procedure for DNA & RNA isolation far quicker, and less tedious.

For example, with Zymo Research’s DNA Cleanup and Concentrator kits, the protocol for cleaning up a DNA solution takes just 2 minutes from start to finish.

I love it. Where can I find these columns?

These lovely columns from Zymo are available in:

So no matter what your DNA & RNA clean-up and isolation needs are, you can take advantage of Zymo’s state-of-the-art spin column technology to get cleaner, more concentrated DNA & RNA in a fraction of the time it takes you with your current kit.

What are you waiting for? More information on DNA & RNA kits from Zymo Research can be found at the Zymo Research website.

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