Reuse of PCR purification column - (Feb/21/2005 )

HI,
I m using QIAZEN kit for PCR purification. I want know that is the cloumn is reusable or not if yes How many time??
Share ur excperinces

regards

quiagen officially say no, they are not reusable, but the real life told me otherwise. yes, you can reuse all of the qiagen columns for nucleic acid purification (mini- gigaprep, PCR clean up, etc.). the reusablility is in therory endless, but I found that 3 to 5 times is ok, after that, that columns often are dusted or otherwise unclean and are the disposed of ...

mind you, since the eluation is never 100% complete, that you can reuse your columns in a sensible way only for the purification of the very same nucleic acid you used it originally, or you will get a mixture of different nucleic acids!

mike