Sample Preparation

Ibis Biosciences has developed sample preparation protocols that effectively isolate nucleic acid from bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Ibis scientists can also recommend isolation methods, both manual and automated, for a variety of sample types listed below. Sample types include environmental samples (air samples from dry filter units, surface swabs, and water samples), research samples (bacterial colonies and bacterial or viral cultures), biological samples (throat swabs, nasal swabs, nasopharyngeal swabs, nasal washes, sputum, and skin swabs), and food samples (meat, dairy, and produce). For human forensics samples, Ibis has also developed protocols for hair, teeth, bone, and blood.

Efficient cell lysis is achieved either through mechanical means (using zirconium beads) or a chemical lysis involving the use of chaotropic agents (using kits purchased from companies such as Qiagen or Ambion). Simple, inexpensive methods, such as boiling followed by centrifugation or magnetic bead-based purification, are also sufficient for some applications, such as genotyping of isolated bacterial colonies. The end-result of the sample isolation process is a nucleic acid preparation suitable for PCR.