Sample Preparation

THE SAMPLE PREPARATION DILEMMA

Biological samples often contain different types of impurities or components which have to be removed in order to do further analysis. Impurities include:

Salts
Detergents
Excess dyes
Small molecules such as primers, peptides, inhibitors and drugs
Buffers
Polyacrylamide
Radiolabel

Some biological materials must be purified and/or enriched from the surrounding matrix before they can be quantified or characterized.  Without sample preparation, detection methods such as Mass Spectroscopy and chemical assays will have trouble accurately identifying the molecules of interest because of the interfering background of the other molecules.

There is currently no single solution for the purification of samples so a variety of techniques are used based on sample characteristics and the nature of what needs to be removed.