Lidstrom:Purifying DNA

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Basics

• You can purify DNA just on a column (removes small pieces only) or you can run it on a gel and then use a kit to purify a band you excise from the gel.
  • column purification has ~ 90% recovery whereas gel purification has ~ 90% loss.
  • use gel purification if you need to select just one band from DNA that yields several bands (e.g. unwanted PCR products)
• We use the Quiagen gel extraction kit, and you can run PCR products on it as well. You can also buy a more specialized kit that is PCR cleanup only and it may help remove primer dimers. Usually people just use the gel kit.