Biotinylated! - brief explanaion (Mar/09/2010 )

Hi,

I'm new to this area and need a clear definition of what it means when a primer is "biotinylated"...is it anything to do with the vitamin Biotin? And its affinity for binding with streptavidin?

Yes, indeed it is the same biotin. In primers it is typically attached to a relatively long linker, c12 or c15 at the 5' end of oligos to make them visible in southern blots when detected by enzyme linked streptavidin. They can also be used to immobilize oligos on beads or surfaces, and to selectively remove biotinylated fragments from solution.