New Kit Simplifies Chromatin Immunoprecipitation-Based Assays

A new commercial assay based on chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is now available for purchase by biotech and genomics researchers.

Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a technique used to study the association of specific proteins, or their modified isoforms, with defined genomic regions. In a ChIP assay, DNA-protein complexes are identified using matching antibodies and the resulting fractions treated to separate the DNA and protein components. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Real-time PCR, hybridization on microarrays, or direct sequencing is typically used to identify DNA fragments of defined sequence.

To make ChIP technology more user-friendly, Porvair Filtration Group (Ashland, VA, USA) has created the 24-assay Chromatrap Pro-A Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation (ChIP) kit. The assay is based on Porvair’s novel Chromatrap technology, which offers a quicker, easier, and more efficient way of undertaking chromatin immunoprecipitation assays.

These kits employ Provair’s Chromatrap Pro-A spin columns, which contain discs of an inert, porous polymer to which protein A has been covalently attached. During an assay, the chromatin/antibody complex is retained by the disc. Flushing with three buffers and an elution step are all that is required to obtain the DNA fragments of interest.

Independent testing of the Chromatrap kit has demonstrated recovery of DNA up to 25 times higher than with traditional bead based procedures. In addition, they reported excellent DNA enrichment with signal-to-noise ratios typically two to three times better than competing procedures and top performance even with samples with as few as 15,000 cells per assay.

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