Storing Many DNA Samples - (Dec/19/2012 )

Hi-

I'm doing DNeasy extractions on ~2-3000 mosquitoes(genomic and Plasmodium DNA), and I'm a bit at a loss for a good way to store/catalogue all the samples so I can find everything later!

I was sort of leaning towards 0.5ml snap cap tubes and then finding freezer boxes to fit them, but I'm not sure if there's a better way.

If anyone has some experience...I'd appreciate some advice!

Thanks,
Ben


To get it out of the way... I'm not interested in any "company-based" systems where you extract the DNA for me or anything of that manner.

My previous lab have to store human DNA for a long time, they had a special drawers in -20 freezer, just to fit a block of polystyrene with holes for 1.5ml eppi. Many of these block could fit within single freezer as they were rather thin and tightly spaced.
But if you don't want to have a special freezer for this, 0.5 eppies in freezer boxes are good idea. I would invest at least into some labeling system if you want to find your samples later. Freeze resistant cap labels (they made them in many colours), with resistant marker to write number on (numbers would be far better to organise and keep readable and short, but you should never lose the key to the numbers and keep it updated) or invest more into some automated printer (freeze resistant) that would print on the caps.

I think you should strongly consider bar coded tubes and a bar code reader. Thermo Matrix supplies the ones we use. They have either easily removed septa (we use these) or screw caps, interchangeable. They fit in 96 well SBS racks and can be moved individually or treated as a plate.