GS-FLX reagent shelf lives

[bbeitzel]

Does anyone have experience using GS-FLX reagents past the expiration dates? It seems like a lot of the reagents have ridiculously short shelf lives (frozen TE with a shelf life < 1yr?).

I have 5 picotiter plate kits that are ~ 1 yr past the expiration date on the box (it has taken me a lot longer to get to sequencing that I thought it would.) As far as I know, the only things in those kits are the glass plate and some rubber gaskets. I don't really want to throw out $2500 worth of perfectly good kits. Any thoughts?

Thanks for any information.

[huguesparri]

Hello,
We used expired kits once. The amount of data we collected was really below the amount of data we usually collect using "fresh" kits.
Nevertheless, I don't think it was due to the picotiterplate (as you said, it's only glass and plastic) but mostly to the enzymatic part.
So I don't see why you can't use them.
Just be sure that the other parts of your kits are not "out of date" as it can really induce a loss of performance on your runs.

[jOn]

Sorry if this reply is a little on the late side - only just joined the site! We've used kit's close to the sell by date before. Your biggest worry would be a sequencing kit, the sell by date on this is usually dictated by the component with the shortest shelf life, you could open the kit up and find everything in date apart from say the DTT for example. As for the shelf life of tubes and PTPs etc - don't worry about it.