DNA Quantitation

The detection and quantitation of small amounts of DNA is extremely important in a wide variety of applications. The most commonly used technique for measuring DNA concentration is determining the absorbance at 260 nm. However, this method has major disadvantages, including:

  1. the relative contribution of nucleotides and single-stranded nucleic acids to the signal.
  2. the interference caused by contaminants found in nucleic acid preparations.
  3. the inability to distinguish between RNA and DNA.
  4. the relative insensitivity of the assay.

The Core Facility offers 2 highly sensitive and specific forms of fluorescent based methods for the detection of dsDNA:

  1. PicoGreen (Invitrogen/Molecular Probes)
  2. Quantifiler (Applied Biosystems)