MagMAX™ Viral/Pathogen Ultra Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit

Some bead carryover is common and has not been documented to affect downstream assays. The most common cause of bead carryover is too much input sample. The best way to determine if the sample amount is the cause of the issue is to run PBS with Xeno (artificial DNA/RNA) in the lysis buffer and then check if there is still bead carryover. If that is not the cause, the initial sample may require special processing, such as bead beating or liquification. If there is still bead carryover without the original sample, and in particular, if the carryover is present in the same wells for multiple runs, then this may be an instrument alignment issue.

Plastic consumables need to be purchased separately in order to use the MagMAX reagents on the MagMAX Express-96 or a KingFisher instrument. The particular consumables and the amount required will vary by kit and protocol so please check the user guide for the particular MagMAX kit to be sure that all required plastic consumables are available prior to sample processing.

The best place to download KingFisher Flex and KingFisher Duo Prime protocols for a particular MagMAX kit is the relevant MagMAX kit product page. The Bindlt script protocol (.bdz) files can be found under the Documents>Product literature section.

Yes, reaction volumes for MagMAX kits can be scaled up. In general, the amount of MagMAX reagents should be scaled up proportionally for the increase in sample input amount. Please see the specific kit user guide for any recommendation. If none are included, then optimization may be necessary.

Addition of BME (2-mercaptoethanol) to the lysis buffer of MagMAX kits is fine. This can be beneficial with more RNase-rich samples like certain types of tissues.
In general, we recommend adding 0.3 µL BME per 100 µL of lysate.