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SYBR Select Master Mix for CFX from Invitrogen - Storage - (Mar/29/2013 )

Hello,

I recently purchased a big amount of SYBR Select Master Mix for CFX from Invitrogen and when delivered I noticed that this product has a short shelf life. They recommend to store is at 4C. My problem is, we got a good offer and I ordered a lot that would be enough for us for a long time. If I keep these at 4C, I will end up throwing more then half of it because it will lose activity. I contacted Life Technologies technical service, and they don't have any information on different stoage conditions to extend shelf life.

My question is, would it be OK to aliquot and store them at -80C, for a longer period? Other SyBr PCR mixes I got from other companies always come frozen to be stored at -20 or -80C for a longer shelf life. Is there anyone who froze this particular product before?

-toprak-

How was it shipped? If it was on dry ice, then obviously it can be frozen, and will be stable at -80. If it was shipped on wet ice, there may be some issue I don't understand.
My guess is that freezing aliquots would be fine.

-phage434-

They are shipped on wet ice and Invitrogen technical service has no information whether it'll be safe to freeze them as they haven't tested that.

-toprak-

sometimes the qPCR master mix cant be frozen to -80, but most of them are to be stored at -20. Strange that invitrogen didnt do the stability testing at -20...

I kept my MM of many different companies at -20, but invitrogen was at +4. Once i had "brain fart" and placed it at -20 for a weekend. Next week the curves seemed strange(er) so i compared it to few others. it seems that the cq increased by ~0.8 and the height of curves decreased by ~10% comparing to other MM (i have done the same experiment half a year ago before this one so the change is only approximation). So we discarded invitrogen MM and now using one of other company that is telling to keep MM at -20 and it stable for long time...

-bigudukaz-

Main problem with SYBR mixes is they should't be thawed repeatedly. That's in general a rule for all fluorescent dyes.
If you won't thaw and freeze repetedly it should be OK.

-Trof-