The need for a biological registration system.

A biological registration system is capable of determining whether two complex biological molecules are the same or different, and can assign identifiers based on this determination. Although such systems are frequently employed by chemists, they are rarely used by biological scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. However, a biological registration system would have several enterprise-wide benefits, from R&D to IP to laboratory safety. Beyond these evident benefits, a biological registration system that integrates appropriately with other systems such as electronic laboratory notebooks and inventory databases could provide critical links to allow the integration of otherwise-siloed data and knowledge generated across global pharmaceutical companies and other large research institutions. Data and knowledge integration are widely recognized as critical yet elusive components of effective translational science and systems biology programs that would create greater efficiencies for drug discovery. However, determining the optimal construction of such systems remains a challenge. This feature review describes how a special interest group comprising several pharmaceutical companies and a software company was used to create a commercially viable and supportable system.

Isolation and purification of large DNA restriction fragments from agarose gels.

This unit describes methods for recovering and purifying DNA restriction fragments from agarose gels. The first protocol describes electroelution of the fragment of interest from standard agarose gels using buffer-filled dialysis bags, followed by concentration and purification using an Elutip column. This approach can be used effectively for fragments of all sizes from 50 to 20,000 bp. Electrophoresis directly onto NA-45 paper (second protocol) provides relatively high yields for fragments <2000 bp. Fragments >1000 bp can also be separated on low gelling/melting agarose gels and purified by phenol extraction (third protocol), b-agarase digestion of the gel (first alternate protocol), or via glass beads extraction (second alternate protocol). Removing linkers from a fragment using a column rather than a gel is described, followed by a method for estimating DNA concentrations in solution.