Since
the inception of automated DNA synthesis there has been a steady trend
toward increasing the number of syntheses performed in parallel. In
the current state of the art procedure, DNA oligonucleotides are synthesized
by the phosphoramidite route in an SBS 96-well format on CPG (controlled
pore glass). While this procedure is adequate for the preparation
of millimole scale DNA synthesis, for many applications this amount
is far beyond what is needed by several orders of magnitude. Because
the synthesized DNA is very expensive the samples must be stored archived
at great expense and nuisance. There is a great need for a synthetic
platform, with a totally scalable architecture in terms of well volume
and areal density, to allow the synthesis of DNA at any scale desired
- DNA on Demand. Parallel provides a solution to this problem by offering
a variety of micromachined substrates which allow DNA, or other chemical
syntheses, in a massively parallel fashion and in a smaller, more
convenient format.
Several
patent pending plate designs are offered with a wide range of well
volumes and well densities. The highest density synthesis plates contain
individual wells and porous regions, which are micromachined directly
into the silicon substrate, can be either surface functionalized to
provide a tether for the subsequent synthesis or the wells can be
filled with polymer beads or CPG. This type of plate is available
as one of Parallel's Silicon
Microarray™ products and Parallel can custom functionalize
the surface with a variety of silanes and silicones to provide a wide
range of surfaces. The plates are available in SBS 96, 384, 1535 and
6144 formats with porous regions ranging from a few to hundreds of
microns.
Larger
volume reactors are available with polypropylene wells with fine silicon
mesh grids well bottoms.
