Articles by New England Biolabs:
DNA Precipitation: Ethanol vs. Isopropanol
As a follow up to our article about ethanol precipitation of DNA and RNA, this article explains the differences between DNA precipitation in ethanol and isopropanol, helping you to figure out which method is the best choice for your experiment. Requirements for Precipitation First, let’s review the components we need to precipitate DNA or RNA with ethanol: 1. Salt…

A Step-by-Step Guide to Designing qPCR Primers
Primer design is a critical step when setting up your qPCR or reverse transcription-qPCR assay (RT-qPCR). qPCR primers that anneal poorly or to more than one sequence during amplification can significantly impact the quality and reliability of your results. Also, if you are performing a one-step RT-qPCR, the reverse transcriptase will use the reverse primer…

How to Calculate a DNA Primer Concentration
Calculations can be the bane of laboratory work. Fortunately, there are many easy methods to help you do the maths you need in the lab. Here, we tell you about the different ways to calculate primer concentration depending on the starting material. For all calculations, let’s assume we have 22 nmol of a DNA primer…
