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Record W4409249868 · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0317658

An inhibitor-free, versatile, fast, and cheap precipitation-based DNA purification method

2025· article· en· W4409249868 on OpenAlexafffund
Zhe Tang, David R. McMillen

Bibliographic record

VenuePLoS ONE · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicBacteriophages and microbial interactions
Canadian institutionsUniversity of Toronto
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
KeywordsChaotropic agentDNANucleic acidDNA extractionPhenol extractionProtein purificationChromatographyElutionChemistryNucleic acid methodsPrecipitationRNACombinatorial chemistryBiochemistryPolymerase chain reaction

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Nucleic acid purification is a key step in molecular biology workflows, and especially critical in synthetic biology. Two common techniques are phenol chloroform extraction and silica column adsorption. We have determined that commercial silica columns appear to elute a currently unidentified substance that can inhibit subsequent enzymatic reactions if not sufficiently diluted. To resolve this inhibition, we have developed a novel purification approach in which we achieve simultaneous protein removal and DNA precipitation through the application of chaotropic salts and alcohol/polyethylene glycol. While prior DNA precipitation approaches require 2 steps to remove protein and precipitate DNA, and 4 steps to remove RNA and precipitate DNA, our method accomplishes all of them in a single step. Our approach matches the speed and versatility of silica column purification while additionally being substantially cheaper, as well as avoiding restrictions on the maximum size of purified DNA fragments and the need for gel extraction to remove primer dimers below 700 bps. Our purification technique has also enabled us to uncover an important insight into nucleic acids: Gibson Assembly generates mainly linear DNA that transforms poorly into the cloning host E. coli, which is linked to suboptimal levels of functional colony formation after transformation. We show that decreasing the concentration of the linear DNA by 100-fold dramatically increases circularization.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.001
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Bench or experimental · Consensus signal: Bench or experimental
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.001
Threshold uncertainty score0.004

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.003

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.016
GPT teacher head0.255
Teacher spread0.238 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designBench or experimental
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations3
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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Same venuePLoS ONESame topicBacteriophages and microbial interactionsFrench-language works237,207