Core Facilities

Contact person for this service is Katie Carter.

Sample Quality

• Contaminants such as high salt, poor DNA or PCR stutter can reduce data quality.
• Samples should be properly diluted before submitting
• TRFLPs and similar samples should be column purified before submitting 
• Column cleaning can be done by ordering through the CGRB Web Ordering Site
• Dilutions
  • It is important that you empirically determine what DNA concentrations are optimal for your project
  • When starting a new project, we suggest doing dilutions series test (i.e. four samples, each diluted 1:1, 1:5, 1:25, 1:100)
  • Consequences: if your samples are too concentrated, it may fail to analyze and/or the data will not be precise. High signal in one color can lead to spectral overlap into other colors, possibly leading to confusing results.
  • It is critical that your samples do not adversely affect other researchers’ data.  Samples with peak heights exceeding the spectral range of the instrument may interfere with the following injection.
  • Optimal peak height is between 500-3000 RFUs
• Evaluate which size standard is appropriate for your samples.  It should be used across an entire experiment for accurate cross comparisons.