DNA BANK

The DNA Bank Unit of the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU) has the necessary equipment to:

•  the conservation and custody of any type of biological sample
•  Molecular analysis of nucleic acids, both DNA and RNA.

All are integrated in a laboratory of 210 m2 specially designed for both areas and that complies with good laboratory practices. Together, it consists of three main and independent spaces destined to:

•  DNA and / or RNA extraction and PCR preparation. In this case, it is subdivided into 7 equally isolated spaces accessed by a distributor and with positive pressure to avoid cross-contamination:
  •  Lab 1. Preparation of pCR
  •  Lab 2. DNA extraction in samples with low cellularity or degraded
  •  Lab 3 and Lab 4. DNA extraction in highly degraded samples
  •  Lab 5. DNA extraction in samples with high cellularity and well preserved
  •  Lab 6. RNA extraction
  •  Lab7. Support spaces: photographic record and sample processing
• analysis of post-PCR samples.
• preservation and custody of samples

The most important equipment for the conservation and custody of samples is the following:

• Automatic nucleic acid extraction equipment
• Automated workstations:
  • Liquid dispenser Biomek 3000 (Beckman Coulter)
  • Starlet Liquid Dispenser (Hamilton)
  • 2D pipe organizer XL20 (BioMIcroLab)
• Quantification of nucleic acids
  • Spectrophotometry:
    • Nanodrop 1000 (GE)
    • DTX880 (Beckman Coulter)
  •  Fluorimetry:
    • Nanodrop 3300 (GE)
    • DTX880 Multimode Detector (Beckman Coulter)
  • Electrophoresis:
    • Bioanalyzer 2100 (Agilent)
• DNA bank
  • Freezers -20ºC (Liebherr)
  • Freezer -80ºC (Panasonic)
  • Ultra-freezers -152ºC
  • Liquid N2 containers ARPEGE

The most important equipment for the molecular analysis of nucleic acids, both DNA and RNA is as follows:

• Conventional thermocyclers (BioRad and Applied Biosystem)
• ABI7000 Real Time Thermal Cycler (Applied Biosystems).
• ABI3130 Sequencer (Applied Biosystems)
• Pyromark Q96 Pyrosequencer (Qiagen).
• Hybridization system and
• dHPLC (Transgenomic) reading of Axon 4100 microarrays (Axon).

Other important general laboratory equipment are:

• MilliQ Integral water purification system (Millipore)
• Centrifuges of microtubes and Falcon tubes (Beckman).
• Blood mixer (Labolan)
• EOS1000D digital camera (Canon)
• Ultraviolet Crosslinker (Amersham Life Sciences)
• Freezer Mill 6750 (Spex)
• Manual microtome (Comecta)
• DNA mini DNA concentrator (Heto)
• Nucleic acid hybridization system composed of:
  • Nucleic acid hybridization oven
  • UV oven for fixing nucleic acids to membranes
  • Thermostatic bath
• Electrophoresis systems formed by:
  • 3.000 and 300 V DC power sources
  • Vats for denaturing electrophoresis, SSCPs and agarose

DNA AUTOMATIC EXTRACTION EQUIPMENT

Automate ExpressTM Forensic DNA Extraction System (Applied Biosystems)

Equipment designed for the extraction of high quality DNA and free of inhibitors in complex samples, with little or degraded DNA: stains and swabs from biological samples (blood, saliva, semen, ...), hair, bone, samples included in paraffin, cigarette butts , bubble gum, …

The Automate ExpressTM develops all the steps of DNA extraction automatically after the selection of one of the protocols it has designed and validated.

After the lysis of the sample, whose time varies according to the type of sample, you can extract up to 13 samples at a time in a maximum time of 30 minutes without any type of pipetting or manual manipulation, avoiding the risk of contamination and errors of transposition.

 The kits they use use a specially formulated washing solution to maximize the maximum elimination of the most common PCR inhibitors, while minimizing DNA loss during washing steps.

DNA recovery can be performed in different volumes of elution, suitable for later applications, such as quantitative real-time PCR and fragment analysis (STRs).