About Oligos
Oligos was founded on the premise that people doing research in the biological sciences often need to know details of the preparation of the oligos which they are using. Such technical support is often difficult to obtain or simply unavailable from resellers of biochemicals.
For this reason we manufacture everything we sell. Our Certificate of Analysis proudly states:
The product described below was manufactured in the laboratories of The Midland Certified Reagent Company of Midland, Texas. The analytical data reported hereon were obtained in the laboratories of The Midland Certified Reagent Company by individuals qualified to perform the analytical procedures. Details of analytical procedures are available to bona fide customers free of charge on request.
Because oligo synthesis is so dependent on quality, information about manufacture is crucial.
We feel that after 35 years of doing business with thousands of satisfied customers in over 100 countries around the world, our premise has been validated.
Our products are often used for gene synthesis in the following way. Two sets of 40-mers are synthesized, each set comprising one of the two strands of the desired gene. Each oligo overlaps a 20-base region of two oligos in the complementary set. The oligos are all combined in approximately equal amounts and several cycles of amplification by PCR are performed. Finally two oligos corresponding to the 5´-ends of each of the strands are added and several more cycles of PCR are run. The products are purified by electrophoresis and the product of the desired size is collected.
The process is used for example in the technique called genetic immunization (De-chu Tang, Michael DeVit & Stephen A. Johnston, NATURE536, 152-154 (1992)). A synthetic gene is coated onto gold microspheres and introduced into a small animal with a gene gun. The animal produces antibodies to the protein encoded by the synthesized gene. This obviates the need to purify the antigenic protein.
Another outgrowth of our focus on the quality of our synthesis chemistry is the ability to modify oligonucleotides. Today we offer more than 200 modifications, including fluorophores, quenchers, backbone modifications, degeneracies, and minor nucleotides. While several modifications can be ordered directly from this website, many pose technical challenges that we will need to discuss with you before we proceed to manufacture. Evidence of success in the modification is provided by the printout of the MALDI-TOF mass spectrum of every modified oligonucleotide.
We continue to offer all of the popular purification modalities, such as HPLC and PAGE purification. However, synthesis technology has advanced sufficiently that for many applications purification that was essential a few years ago is no longer necessary.Thus, for example, genes are constructed with GF grade (desalted) oligonucleotides without the need for further purification.
We also continue to offer a wide range of polynucleotides, including duplexed polynucleotides and template/primer combinations. Click on the Store menu for lists of DNA Polynucleotides, RNA Polynucleotides, or Template/Primers used to distinguish reverse transcriptase from DNA polymerase activities.
