FFPE

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High-Throughput Purification with Experts Included

Implementing automated nucleic acid purification or making changes to your high-throughput (HT) workflow can be complicated and time-consuming. There are also many barriers to success such as challenging samples types and maintaining desirable downstream results that can add to the stress, not to mention actually getting the robotic instrumentation to do what you want it to. All of this makes it easy to understand why many labs avoid automating or own expensive instrumentation that goes unused. Continue reading →

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Choosing a Better Path for Your NGS Workflow

Imagine you are traveling in your car and must pass through a mountain range to get to your destination. You’ve been following a set of directions when you realize you have a decision to make. Will you stay on your current route, which is many miles shorter but contains a long tunnel that cuts straight through the mountains and obstructs your view? Or will you switch to a longer, more scenic route that bypasses the tunnel ahead and gets you to your destination a bit later than you wanted?

Choosing which route to take illustrates a clear trade-off that has to be considered—which is more valuable, speed or understanding? Yes, the tunnel gets you from one place to another faster. But what are you missing as a result? Is it worth a little extra time to see the majestic landscape that you are passing through?

Considering this trade-off is especially critical for researchers working with human DNA purified from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) or circulating cell-free DNA (ccfDNA) samples for next-generation sequencing (NGS). These sample types present a few challenges when performing NGS. FFPE samples are prone to degradation, while ccfDNA samples are susceptible to gDNA contamination, and both offer a very limited amount of starting material to work with.

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ProK: An Old ‘Pro’ That is Still In The Game

Proteinase K Ribbon Structure ImageSource=RCSB PDB; StructureID=4b5l; DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.2210/pdb4b5l/pdb;

Proteinase K Ribbon Structure ImageSource=RCSB PDB; StructureID=4b5l; DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.2210/pdb4b5l/pdb;

If you enter any molecular lab asking to borrow some Proteinase K, lab members are likely to answer: “I know we have it. Let me see where it is”. Sometimes the enzyme will be found to have expired. The lab may also have struggled with power outages or freezer malfunctions in the past. But the lab still decides to keep the enzyme. One may rightly ask – why do labs hang on to Proteinase K even when it has been stored under sub-standard conditions? Continue reading →

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Fixed in the Past, Focus on the Future

“I would do more with my samples, but it’s just not possible…I know there’s probably a wealth of information in there, but there is just no way to get it out…I’ve got blocks of tissue sitting in the lab, experiments I want to run, but no good way to get clean nucleic acids out.”

These are a few of the comments I heard when talking with scientists at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting last week in Montreal. They, and countless other researchers, are sitting on a treasure trove of information that may have been locked away a few months ago, a few years ago, or decades ago. I’m referring to formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks. It is estimated that there are upwards of 400 million tissue blocks archived globally and scientists are clamoring to find ways to best utilize nucleic acids derived from these tissues in applications like qPCR, microarrays, and next generation sequencing.1  Continue reading →