PickPen 1-M is a hand-held practical tool for the transfer of magnetic particles in different sample purification applications.
PickPen has a retractable magnet which collects and moves particles from liquid to liquid. This enables simple and efficient separation and purification protocols.
The PickPen magnet is protected by a disposable silicone rubber tip which is changed between samples to avoid cross contamination. PickPen tips are now supplied in convenient 8-Packs as part of QuickPick kits. The tips in 8-Packs are RNase and DNase free and do not require pretreatment, but tips in bulk are also available separately.
Bio-Nobile has developed a range of QuickPick kits for nucleic acid and protein purification work, including kits for the isolation of mRNA, plant, plasmid and genomic DNA, as well as protein fractionation and purification applications. Purification of Histidine-tagged proteins is carried out with the IMAC kit, and protein fractionations with the weak ion exchange kits DEAE and CM.
Isolations with PickPen and QuickPick kits are fast and simple, and do not involve centrifugations or the use of organic solvents. mRNA isolations from cell lysate take less than 10 minutes, while genomic DNA isolations from blood are carried out in less than 20 minutes. His-tag protein purifications take 5 minutes per preparation.
In the QuickPick purification protocols, the substance of interest is bound to the magnetic particles and separated from the rest of the sample based on a combination of appropriate particles and appropriate chemistry. In the purification and washing steps, PickPen is used to lift the magnetic particles with the captured substance out of the surrounding liquid. Laborious and time-consuming steps such as repeated centrifugations, aspiration or decanting of liquids are avoided. In addition, there is no need for an external magnet rack which makes processing easier. Purified material is of high quality as contaminants are efficiently washed away. At the end of the process, the isolated substance is eluted from the particles and is ready for use in downstream applications.
The elution volume can be extremely small, which enables sample concentration, a feature which is particularly useful in protein chemistry. In some cases, elution is not necessary, and downsteam applications can be carried out directly on the magnetic particle-bound material.
PickPen 1-M is designed for low throughput demands. For increased thoughput, but where full automation is not economically attractive, PickPen 8-M is a cost-effective and efficient alternative. Its principle of operation is the same as for PickPen 1-M, but in addition allows the convenient parallel processing of eight samples in microplate format. Its unique ergonomic design makes it comfortable to use.
Due to the short purification times in QuickPick kit protocols, batch sizes can be increased without significantly increasing overall processing time. For example 24 genomic DNA samples can be processed simultaneously as three sets of eight samples in one microplate in 20 minutes after sample lysis.
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Bio-Nobile Oy is based in Turku, Finland. www.bio-nobile.com
