Service Department

This part or the facility web sites still awaits content.

In the meantime, we can only provide you with last year's contribution to the annual scientific report of IMP and IMBA.

Production of antibodies

The production and isolation of many different monoclonal antibodies in hybridomas in collaboration with IMP group members, and organising antibody production in rabbits with an outside company, takes some of our working time capacity.

Sequencing and DNA isolation

The 48 capillary ABI 3730 DNA Genetic Analyser is the only work horse. The 16 capillary ABI 3100 Genetic Analyser is solely used as a back-up sequencer for emergencies.
We sequenced approximately 55,000 samples in the first 9 months of this year. This substantially increased demand is due to screening projects and the new fly library, but also to new groups at IMBA as well as at the IMP.
We are primarily using the 3730 DNA Analyser because of its sensitivity and lower consumables running costs. The average read-length is 700–900 bases for standard DNA samples with 50 cm ABI 3730 capillaries.
DNA sample quality and concentration are a problem even when prepared by sophisticated Qiagen Kits like Midi-, Maxi- or Minipreps, as are wrong primer sets or insufficiently documented plasmid constructs from outside sources. Compared to analysis by restriction digest, sequencing is faster and easier. The clean-up protocol with Sephadex G50 superfine columns on a 96-well microtiter plate format with optimised Sephadex consistency and centrifugation conditions has been transferred to a BioTek benchtop minirobot. The results tell us that there is no difference between the plates prepared by the robot and those prepared manually and they do not show “dye blobs” with good quality DNA samples.

We also prepare many selected reagents such as DNA molecular weight markers, enzymes, a variety of transformation-competent E. coli strains and we maintain a stock of cloning vectors, sequencing primers and other reagents.