Previously, the use of magnetic beads was limited to small volumes. The difficulty of scaling up beyond a few milliliters was misinterpreted as a limitation of the technology itself. However, as discussed in this e-book, the problem is not the biomagnetic separation process, but a lack of understanding of the physical processes governing it. Once you identify the key parameters that control the magnetic bead's behavior, it is easy to choose the right tools and methods to validate the process and replicate it at different volumes.
Immunoassay tests are biochemical/bioanalytical methods that detect an “analyte” and quantify its concentration in a complex mixture of chemicals or biological fluids (e.g. serum or urine). Analytes can be a micro- or macromolecule (e.g. protein, nucleic acid, polysaccharide or lipid) or chemical substances (e.g. hormones, drugs).
Once you have defined the required magnetic force, with a constant magnetic force separation device, it is simple to scale up production. Having validated the magnetic force at a small scale, the same force value can be used for a larger system, even in a different magnetic separation system. Because the conditions remain the same, efficiency (no losses) and batch consistency (no irreversible aggregation) are guaranteed.
Magnetic DNA purification is a simple and reliable way to isolate DNA.
Nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) isolation and amplification is an important tool for molecular biology and important step before many biochemical and diagnostic processes. These techniques have made great progress recently [1][2] due to the increasing number of sudden and public health-threatening infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola virus, Zika virus and more recently SARS-Covid) prompting the wide applications of nucleic acid detection for the on-site immunological technologies and rapid kits (for magnetic mRNA purification refer to “Oligo dT-coated magnetic beads: the benefits of their application for mRNA purification”).
When designing a magnetic separation strategy, it is easy to get caught up in the properties of the superparamagnetic beads and how to coat them with the biomolecule of interest (antibodies, antigens, DNA, RNA, oligonucleotides, aptamers...). It is exciting to choose a bead and tailor its surface ligands to perfectly match your target molecule, but don’t stop there! The magnetic separation rack is equally important to a successful identification, isolation, or enrichment protocol. After all, a perfectly designed bead will be useless without a properly designed magnetic rack to efficiently recover it from the solution.
In the recent decades, proteins gained importance after the advent of more advanced analytical procedures and novel genetic or molecular engineering methods. Proteins are cell products and have various physiological functions in the body. Hence, any abnormality in gene expression (mRNA defects), amino acid sequence or structural dysfunction of proteins leads to severe diseases and pathological conditions.
The ELISA (Enzyme Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) is the gold star immunoassay, used to detect the presence of a target protein. It is the standard procedure that all new assay technology is compared to during research and development. The ELISA is also fundamental to most clinical tests for diagnosing disease because it is highly sensitive, and is currently the best characterized and standardized method.
Under constant magnetic force conditions, optical monitoring of the biomagnetic separation process provides information on both when the separation is complete and the characteristics of the magnetic bead suspension.
Protein purification is a fundamental part of studying proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids, necessary for a wide range of clinical, research and industry applications. But choosing the most appropriate protein purification system can be challenging, especially for researchers who are just starting to think about automating their protein purification protocols.
Constant magnetic force separation systems generate the same conditions for all magnetic beads in the suspension. As bead behavior is consistent at every point of the working volume, any changes in the suspension's opacity can be directly related to changes in the suspension’s characteristics.
