Bioruptor from Diagenode - Has anyone used? (Sep/19/2008 )

Has anyone used the Bioruptor system from Diagenode for DNA sonication?

It's a sonicator with a cup horn....

My lab is considering getting it, and I hope to get some comments from current users

For example how is it compared to Misonix S3000

Any experience is welcomed

Hi - we are using the Bioruptor for all of our ChIP experiments (mammalian cell lines). The neighboring lab is using it for yeast cells (S. pombe). I can't comment on how this system compares to other sonicator models, but for my purposes, I am very happy with the Bioruptor. It's a solid and very reliable system that shears very reproducibly. In fact, I can use exactly the same settings here in the UK that I was using on a Bioruptor system in the States. We just got the 'new' Bioruptor twin, so have the possibility to sonicate up to 12 samples at the same time. I never experienced any problems with this system - the only issue that I noticed is that it seems to be fairly sensitive to the absolute number of cells in your sample - if you're too far off your 'standard', you will notice differences in the fragment length (but I guess that is a general problem when sonicating...). Another minor problem is the cooling of your samples: unless you have your system set up in a cold room, you will need to change the water / add some ice every now and then depending on the total sonication time. Apparently, there is an automatic cooling system available to purchase separately from Diagenode, though I am not sure how much that would come to (probably don't want to know either )