Using the Nano Drop


 * 1) What you need to bring: a box of 10ul tips, a 0.5-10ul pipette (if you are doing an entire box, bring a 0.5-10ul multichannel pipette), molecular grade deionized water (pipette about 1ml from the tissue culture tube into a microcentrifuge tube), gloves, the plate of DNA you want to check, and self-adhesive foil.
 * 2) Put on the gloves. Turn on the computer, or just move the mouse if it was on standby.
 * 3) Enter your lab name and password. Name: HANNER  Password: bob.
 * 4) Select “Nucleic Acid” because you want to measure DNA.
 * 5) Lift the plastic cover off of the machine.
 * 6) Lift up the metal lever and wipe it off the row of eight places you put samples with a Kim Wipe.
 * 7) Place 2ul of water on the black dot of the nano-drop (you access this by lifting up the top leaver) and then close the lever. Press ok.  The machine will make click sounds and will be done after ten or fifteen seconds.  Lift up the lever and wipe the black dot off.  Place 2ul of water on the black dot again and press “Blank”.  If you want to verify that it has indeed blanked, press “Measure” to see that you end up with 0 ng/ul or a very low number.  If there is a high number, re-blank it with a new sample.
 * 8) Lift up the lever and wipe off the water. Place 2ul of your sample on the black dot and close the leaver. Check off all the positions of the nano-drop that you want to get a measurement from.  Press “Measure”.
 * 9) Write down all the information because trying to print it or save it on the computer is difficult.
 * 10) Make sure to use a new tip for every sample as to not contaminate your DNA.
 * 11) After every 8 samples, you have to re-blank it with ddH2O.
 * 12) Record the 260/280, 260/230, and the ng/ul.
 * 13) The 260/280 is DNA divided by impurities and if the DNA is pure it should be around 1.8. The 260/230 is for DNA divided by protein content, it should be around 2, but for DNA extracted in BIO this number tends to be around 0.01.
 * 14) The ng/ul is the concentration of the DNA and it should be around 50.
 * 15) If your DNA is too concentrated, use less in the PCR reaction (there should be 100ng of DNA for the PCR reaction to work properly).

Return to What to do when your Plates Fail or Barcoding in the Hanner Lab Wiki.

Updated May 2 2009