As the normalized COVID-19 testing making the quality and cost control of the raw materials particularly important while ensuring the testing accuracy and stability, MGI launched its self-developed and mass-produced Magnetic Beads TQ01. This magnetic bead product is also the key raw material required for MGI’s widely used nucleic acid extraction reagent and MGIEasy Stool Human DNA Extraction Kit.
Magnetic beads are the key materials for nucleic acid extraction. Compared with column extraction, magnetic bead-based nucleic acid extraction reagent is more compatible to automation systems to meet the requirements for high efficiency and reliability in large-scale nucleic acid testing. With the rapid magnetic response, strong adsorption capacity and automation-friendly features, MGI’s Magnetic Beads TQ01 can capture trace nucleic acids from various types of samples in a more efficient and rapid way, such as the DNA or RNA of viruses, fecal genomic DNA, and more.
Product Highlights
Fast magnetic response, suitable for large-scale automated nucleic acid extraction
Good nucleic acid binding ability, enabling highly efficient capture of trace DNA/RNA
The extraction product can fully satisfy the downstream operation and has no PCR inhibition
Compatible with alcohol extraction system and non-alcohol extraction system.
Product Performance
The Magnetic Beads TQ01 are highly uniform in particle size, CV<5%, with small difference among batches, making it suitable for clinical detection and application. With a larger surface area preferred for binding, the Magnetic Beads TQ01 have better nucleic acid adsorption capacity for capture of trace nucleic acids from samples.
Figure 1 Distribution of Magnetic Beads TQ01 under scanning electron microscope (SEM) with magnification of 1000 times
Figure 2 Surface of Magnetic Beads TQ01 under scanning electron microscope (SEM) with magnification of 35,000 times
Application
1. Extraction of virus nucleic acid
Empowered by MGIEasy nucleic acid extraction reagent with Magnetic Beads TQ01 as the key raw material, together with the existing novel coronavirus RT-qPCR detection reagent on the market, the COVID-19 pseudovirus samples with different concentrations can be detected, and stable detection of 100 copies/mL can be achieved. It also verifies that the Magnetic Beads TQ01 have excellent ability for virus nucleic acid capture.
Figure 3 The Ct values of COVID-19 pseudovirus samples with different concentrations obtained after extraction with MGIEasy virus nucleic acid extraction reagent (in which Magnetic Beads TQ01 is a component) and after RT-qPCR detection The samples with different concentrations were repeated 20 times in each group, and the CV of Ct value was < 5%.
2. Extraction of the fecal genomic DNA
MGIEasy Stool Human DNA Extraction Kit with Magnetic Beads TQ01 as the key raw material was used to extract the fecal samples (about 200mg) of four healthy persons with manual operation and automation systems for comparison. As can be seen from Figure 4, the kit can stably and selectively extract genomic DNA from such complex samples as feces (see Figure 4 on the left) and in the meantime produce outputs with higher purity (see Figure 4 on the right). This test shows that Magnetic Beads TQ01 can efficiently extract gDNA from complex samples such as feces.
Figure 4 MGI’s MGIEasy Stool Human DNA Extraction Kit (in which TQ01 is its component) was used to extract four stool samples manually and automatically on its automation systems, MGISP-960 and MGISP-NE384. The figure on the left shows the extraction yield (Qubit) and the figure on the right picture shows the purity of the product (A260/A280).
As the provider of core life science tools, Magnetic Beads TQ01 is MGI’s first raw material product. Notably, Magnetic Beads TQ01 can not only be used as one of the raw materials for large-scale nucleic acid testing, but also extraction reagents.