EpiSonic

[cli]

Dear all,

Has anyone tried EpiSonic to shear genomic DNA? My goal is to shear DNA into 150bp - 200bp range. This equipment is much cheaper than Covaris. It also seems that you can use regular tube for shearing with EpiSonic?

Thanks in advance.

[protist]

Dear all,

Has anyone tried EpiSonic to shear genomic DNA? My goal is to shear DNA into 150bp - 200bp range. This equipment is much cheaper than Covaris. It also seems that you can use regular tube for shearing with EpiSonic?

Thanks in advance.

I have not used that particular instrument but it appears similar to the Biorupter from Diagenode (except EpiSonic supports multiwell plates). We use our Biorupter for fragmentation of all genomic or ChIP DNA samples. The fact that Biorupter was was substantially cheaper than Covaris was a factor when we purchased it.....

[cli]

Thanks for your reply. The price of Covaris is also my major concern. EpiSonic Multi-Functional Bioprocessor 1000 is only priced for $1,1950. The gel picture of sheared products look good according to their website. How do you like your result from biorupter? I like to save some money but also want make sure nothing compromise the results. Thanks.

[protist]

We have had no problems with the Biorupter and we have been using it since late 2008. I have made lots of gDNA libraries with varying insert sizes with no problems. We have also used it for both ChIPseq and FAIRE-seq libraries. The tube format is both convenient and stops any cross contamination. The multiwell plate format with the EpiSonic looks very interesting as that would allow a higher throughput. My advice would be to ask for a demo if possible and try it out on some of your samples but from the information it looks as if it should do the job.

[cli]

Yes, I will ask for a demo. Thanks for your suggestion.

[darwin142]

Hi Cli,
Did you ever request a demo?

[cli]

I did online, but no one replied me yet. I will call them up. I keep you updated about what I find out.

[Paolo oxford]

episonic trial

Hi we have tested the episonic instrument and are quite happy. not 100% consistent across a 96 well plate but we fragment 1 plate for genomic in less than 10min (after chilling the horn)!

[ETHANol]

I haven't used the EpiSonic but lately I've been using the Covaris for shearing x-linked DNA for ChIP. I've been very impressed with the following:

1) Reproducibility is amazing even between different cell types, tissues and cells concentrations.
2) Even shearing of DNA with very little bias towards regions of open chromatin which was an issue using a tip sonicator.
3) Efficiently shears x-linked DNA in 0.1% SDS so no dilution of sample is necessary before immunoprecipitation.
4) Very little epitope degradation.

I have seen some data provided from Covaris that shows the Bioruptor causes more epitope degradation but it wasn't a perfectly controlled experiment.

Anyway if anyone has data addressing these points that compares the EpiSonic/Bioruptor with the Covaris I would like to see it. As is I think we are going to go ahead and purchase the Covaris. While an expensive instrument, given the price of the equipment and reagents associated with next-gen sequencing it looks like a good investment.