New Method of Mass-Producing High-Quality DNA Molecules
Date: 3.6.2013
A new method of manufacturing short, single-stranded DNA molecules can solve many of the problems associated with current production methods.
The new method, which is described in the scientific periodical Nature Methods, can be of value to both DNA nanotechnology and the development of drugs consisting of DNA fragments.
The novel technique for manufacturing short, single-stranded DNA molecules -- or oligonucleotides -- has been developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Harvard University. Such DNA fragments constitute a basic tool for researchers and play a key part in many fields of science. Many of the recent advances in genetic and molecular biological research and development, such as the ability to quickly scan an organism's genome, would not have been possible without oligonucleotides.
The new method is versatile and able to solve problems that currently restrict the production of DNA fragments. The process of bioproduction, whereby bacteria are used to copy DNA sequences, enables the manufacture of large amounts of DNA copies at a low cost. Unlike current methods of synthesising oligonucleotides, where the number of errors increases with the length of the sequence, this new method according to the developers also works well for long oligonucleotides of several hundred nitrogenous bases.
