Nucleic acid adherence to plastics - Nucleic acid adherence to plastics (Oct/27/2004 )

Hello all,

Does anyone know which types of plastic DNA, RNA, and proteins will NOT adhere to? I know PCR tubes are made of polypropylene. I am trying to minimize sample loss of DNA and RNA and have been told that polypropylene may cause adherence.

Thanks!

You could use siliconized tubes. Either buy them or make them yourself. We have a bottle of "repel silane" that's used for large SDS gels used for sequencing or what-have-you. Pour some in a tube (preferably under a fume hood!), close the tube, make sure the fluid gets everywhere, then pour the fluid into the next tube, repeat until there's no fluid left and you end up with a bunch of siliconized tubes. Leave open until dry.
Works great for eppendorfs, I haven't tried PCR tubes though.

I was also going to suggest siliconised surfaces, but wasn't aware that plastics could be siliconised.

Sambrook et al.'s Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual should also have some ideas on this as well as methods of performing the treatments.