Spin Column-Based Isolation of Nucleic Acid

Abstract

Spin column technique is a solid-phase extraction commercial strategy to extract nucleic acid from a wide range of crude biological samples, including tissues, plant extracts, viruses, and bacteria. It is advantageous over other extraction techniques such as less time consumption, economical, energy-efficient, automated operation, prevention from cross-contamination, and high yield. It is based on the principle of binding nucleic acid to immobilized solid-phased spin columns of different materials under specific circumstances. There are five commercial types of spin column used for nucleic acid extraction, including silica membrane, anion exchange, filter paper, glass fiber, and polyethylene fibers. It is a five-stage process consisting of cell lysis, purification, washing, dry spin, and elution using appropriate buffers. This technique possesses applications in molecular studies, diagnosis, forensic science, vaccine development, and pharmaceuticals. The techniques differ for DNA and RNA extraction in maintaining the pH of elution buffer (basic for DNA), which is the most crucial stage of separation processing. However, the automated operation of spin columns is required to connect with the Internet of things to develop a next-generation advanced intelligent separation system.