Biotinylated! - brief explanaion (Mar/09/2010 )

Hi,

I'm new to this area and need a clear definition of what it means when a primer is "biotinylated"...is it anything to do with the vitamin Biotin? And its affinity for binding with streptavidin?

Yes, indeed it is the same biotin. In primers it is typically attached to a relatively long linker, c12 or c15 at the 5' end of oligos to make them visible in southern blots when detected by enzyme linked streptavidin. They can also be used to immobilize oligos on beads or surfaces, and to selectively remove biotinylated fragments from solution.

Hello,

I've made a little research about streptavidin-coated magnetic beads. I would like to immobilize biotinylated PCR products. I have 3 candidate products. Theoretically, all of these items are ideal for this purpose.

There is huge price difference between these products (and some differences in certain parameters).

- Dynabeads® M-280 Streptavidin ; bead diameter: 2,8 um ; Binding Capacity (free biotin): 650-900 pmoles/mg beads ; concentration: 10 mg/ml ; 10 ml : 1 500 $

- solulink ; bead diameter: 0,8 um ; Binding Capacity (free biotin):  > 14 nmol/mg ; concentration: 10 mg/ml ; 10 ml: 800 $

- spherotech ; bead diameter: 0,5 - 4.5 um ; Binding Capacity (free biotin): no described ; concentration: 0,5 - 1 w/v % ; 10 ml: 200-250 $

But I don't know what so special in M-280 making it very expensive.

Can anybody tell me what I should choose ?

Thanks for the answer !