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PCR Smear - (Nov/03/2005 )

Hi PCR people, I also have a smear bands problem, or not any band at all and just the smear. The strange part is that just one or two months ago, I was having very clear bands. My samples were stored in RNAlater at -20, so I can't believe that they are completely degraded. I'm extracting the DNA with a Phenol based technique, by the way.
What I wonder, and I don't know if it might have happened to anybody, if it is that a small degradation of the samples, might originate small fragments that can compit with my primers for the amplification. Any comments? Thanks a lot.

-Pablo-

You probably have poisoned your PCR. Grab a fresh batch of reagents and set up using some else's pipettors.

Daniel

DNA sequencing research

-Daniel Tillett-

What do your controls look like?

-Matt

-MisticMatt-