Magnetic Beads Based Nucleic Acid Purification for Molecular Biology Applications

During the last decade there has been a significant increase in usage of magnetic beads for nucleic acid purification. Using magnetic particles in nucleic acid isolation over the other existing methods offers several advantages: a possibility to automate process; scalability and the capability to move particles form well to well; and avoiding the cross-contamination caused by splashing of droplets when pipetting liquid materials. There are numerous commercial kits developed for specific sample types and downstream applications. This chapter discusses advantages of using magnetic beads over the membrane or resin based separation. It describes the most common materials that magnetic beads are made off, their characteristics and efficiency of separation. It also presents current automated systems used for low-, medium-, and high-throughput sample processing.