Tips include why you should prepare fresh 70% ETOH daily for washes and why you should not overdry the AMPure® XP beads.
Be sure to prepare fresh 70% ETOH daily for washes. ETOH may evaporate over time and leave your mix at <70% ETOH. As ETOH evaporates, the concentration of your solution decreases. This may result in DNA being eluted from your Ampure XP beads and being discarded as waste supernatant. This may lead to the loss of important sample and experimental failure.
Huiyan Jin
NGS Field Application Scientist, North America
AMPure bead drying - make sure the beads are dry, but do not over dry.
Pete Gray
Array and NGS Field Application Specialist, Europe
Decreased yield and increased DNA damage will occur if overdried.
Kicki Bergefall
FAS Manager - Europe
Do not overdry the AMPure® XP beads (they will appear cracked) after the ETOH washes. The cracks make the beads clump together and reduces elution efficiency due to elution buffer not being able to access the DNA in the middle of the clumps.
Serena Pace
NGS Field Application Scientist, North America
Figure 1: Examples of wet, dry and overdried beads.