Automated system for unbiased and high yield preparation and quantitation of genomic samples

Summary Sample preparation of nucleic acids is essential for all genomic analyses, and yet it is the primary source of variability and requires tedious manual labor. For samples with relatively low abundance (lt100 ng or roughly 20,000 mammalian cells or less), current sample preparation methods also result in crippling material loss and low repeatability. For small RNA, current technologies can result in severe sequence or length biases. We here propose a novel method and product which achieves nucleic acid extraction, purification, and quantitation from complex samples using isotachophoresis (ITP). ITP is an electrophoresis method which can be used to highly selectively extract target nucleic acids from complex samples including blood, urine, and cell culture. Proposed is the development of novel, low-cost plastic chips and a benchtop reader and control unit for automated extraction of DNA or RNA from complex lysate samples. The method offers the unique capability of processing low abundance samples: Provid