Few things are as tedious as waiting for the alcohol to evaporate and an extracted DNA or RNA pellet to dry. DNA and RNA extractions are a huge time sink for scientists. The hallmark washing steps and column spins of nucleic acid extraction kits can tie scientists to the lab bench for hours depending on the number of samples.
Most nucleic acid extraction kits use spin-column technology, where DNA or RNA binds to a silica-based membrane in the presence of high concentrations of chaotropic salts, such as guanidine hydrochloride. The term chaotropic means chaos-forming, suggesting the entropic result of these salts disrupting the structure of macromolecules. This destabilizes proteins and frees the DNA or RNA from water to facilitate its binding to a silica-based membrane in a spin column. Residual chaotropic salts may creep into the final extracted product, reducing the accuracy of nucleic acid quantification and interfering with downstream ...
