DNA Synthesis

Quality Oligos at Competitive Prices plus Direct Customer Service

BioServe utilizes the MerMade IV Oligonucleotide Synthesizer by BioAutomation and the ABI® 394 synthesizer from Applied Biosystems Division of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation to meet the challenge of synthesizing quality oligonucleotides at a reasonable price. 

The MerMade IV oligonucleotide Synthesizer is designed to synthesize two standard 96-well plates of oligonucleotides in a single run using standard phosphoramidite chemistry. The machine is capable of making a combination of standard, degenerate, or modified oligos in a single plate. The reaction scale can be varied from 5 to 100 nmol. A typical run time is 8 hours for two plates of 20mers.  Oligos up to 80 bases in length have been made with a coupling efficiency in excess of 98%.

There are three main hardware components in the MerMade IV. The inner reaction chamber, the outer chamber, and the motion/injection system. The two 96 well plates are placed inside two separate vacuum chucks which are then placed into the inner chamber. This outer chamber is of sufficient size to accommodate the full motion of the X-Y table. The injection head is mounted on the top of the outer chamber lid and the XY chamber, controlled by the computer and moves the plates around under the injection head. The two chambers ensures the process takes place in a moisture free and chemically inert environment. During the course of synthesis, Argon is continually introduced into the inner chamber and the small gap at the top of the chamber guarantees a constant flow of gas through the chamber.

Our ABI® 394 synthesizers are equipped with online trityl monitoring capacity to maintain consistently high quality products. Further quality control includes HPLC and gel analysis of selected oligonucleotides from each DNA synthesizer. Our oligonucleotides are shipped via overnight express service to destinations in the USA and 20 countries.

Typical applications of the oligos are for use in microarray experiments, dye terminator sequencing reactions, polymerase chain reactions (PCR), hybridization, and reverse transcriptase PCR. In addition, our in-house scientists routinely use our oligonucleotides in these techniques and others.

Purifications: BioServe provides the following methods for purifying oligonucleotides.

• OPC: This purification method is based on the "trityl-on" synthesis of the oligonucleotides. The OPC cartridge contains material that has affinity to bind the "trityl" group present on the last base. The oligonucleotides that do not contain this group are washed off and the pure oligonucleotides are eluted with 20% acetonitrile. OPC purification yields oligonucleotides that are 90-95% full length.
• PAGE: In this procedure, oligonucleotides are purified based on their mobility on denaturing polyacrylamide gels. The band of interest is excised using UV shadowing and extracted from the gel. Oligonucleotides purified by this method are 99% full length.
• HPLC: BioServe provides both reverse phase and ion exchange HPLC purification of oligonucleotides. Oligonucleotides purified by HPLC are 99% full length.