Direct Plant PCR

Direct PCR from plant material is a challenging application as a result of the diversity of plant tissue types and the potent PCR inhibitors contained within the tissue. Success rates with direct PCR are typically low due to the high concentrations of inhibitors present in even small amounts of plant material, and the precise control of sample size required.

To solve these problems with plant PCR, we evolved a third-generation DNA polymerase with our directed evolution platform. The resulting enzyme, Solix Plant, is not only more resistant to inhibitors co-purified in plant DNA extracts, but is also capable of amplifying DNA directly from plant tissues for several species. For more challenging plant species, the use of crude extractions is also possible with the SolixPlant PCR Kit.

Use of the SolixPlant PCR Kit enables researchers to convert their existing, laborious plant PCR screening workflows to a more high-throughput workflow, employing either leaf or seed material, or crude extracts as template. This significantly increases the turnaround time from sample to result, and eliminates the need for expensive and time-consuming DNA purification protocols.