Mini Course: High Molecular Weight DNA Extraction

Sequencing technologies have rapidly developed in recent years, a major outcome being the ubiquity of long-read sequencing methods. These (relatively) new methods allow de novo construction of high-quality genomes of model and non-model organisms alike.

Irrespective of the sequencing platform, a prerequisite for long-read sequencing is high molecular weight (HMW) DNA. Extracting HMW DNA can sometimes be challenging, as it is relatively easy to break the DNA molecules during extraction. While the protocol in this Mini Course is generally applicable for all kinds of animals, we will specifically focus on HMW DNA extraction from small animals.

In this Mini Course, we will extract HMW DNA (>100KB molecules) from ants (or a sample of your choice) using a modified protocol of the Qiagen MagAttract HMW DNA Kit. We hope to achieve results as shown in the figure below.

DNA extraction of an ant showing a sharp band at >200KB

Target audience

This course is suitable for anyone intersted in HMW DNA extraction.

Teachers

The teacher will be Gaurav Agavekar (PhD Candidate, Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit).

Program

The course will take place over the course of a whole day, on Thursday November 12, 9AM to 5PM.

There will be an introduction session in the morning, and the rest of the day (minus lunch break) will be spent in the lab doing hands-on experiments.

More information

Location: B506, Teaching Lab, Lab 1.
What to bring: note taking material, optionaly your own sample (see below).
YouTube: this course will not be recorded.
Zoom: this course will not be available on Zoom.

If you are interested in the course but cannot participate to this particular event, let us know and we will contact you for any later occurrence of the course.

Thank you very much for your interest.

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