Merlin fixed!

[Adie]

Well in case anyone in the future has to do merlin maxiprep
troubleshooting, the problem seemed to be *with the old merlin III
buffer*.  I checked the pH and it was a little high.  I took some new
buffer III I'd made, adjusted the pH to 4.8 (the protocol I was given
for making the buffers said nothing about buffer III's pH  >:P  ), and
did the prep as usual and it worked beautifully!

Chatting; initially when our lab first started doing merlin maxipreps,
after the spin-down there would be a fine precipitate that made the
lysate look cloudy and was generally a pain to filter.  It would clear
up when isopropanol was added, and I still got decent purity and yield
at the end.  After a while the lystates began to be clear and
filtering was much easier...the assay still worked until this week.
When I repeated the prep with the new buffer III with pH 4.8, the
lysate was cloudy again!  So, I guess that's actually a good sign...?
Or maybe my pH is too low; I've read some protocols calling for a pH
of 5.2.

DK -- at the same time, I tried a prep using 1:1:1 of buffers I, II,
and III, along with 0.8v isopropanol.  This worked too!
Incidentally, with this prep I used new merlin III without futzing
with the pH (it was 5.2), and the lysate was very clear and did not
have a fine precipitate.


(waves to search engines)
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