In: Biology
What are false positives that can occur with a nanodrop?
A nano-drop is an ultra-high sensitive spectrophotometer in which the extremely low quantities of nucleic acids and proteins could be quantitatively and qualitatively measured. In order to understand any false positives in a nano-drop, let us assume that an experiment is being carried out to quantify a double-stranded DNA of 100 kbp in a given sample.
When the sample is placed on the stage of nano-drop, it gives quantitative readings which can be used to calculate the concentration of DNA in the sample. However, it fails to distinguish between the length and nature of DNA since nano-drop does not identify the structural composition of the sample. Thus, even if the original DNA sample has been broken into 2-3 or more segments but the total concentration still remains 100 kbp, it will give a final reading as same. This becomes a false positive from nano-drop reading as such DNA sample cannot be used for experimentation.
Presently, these problems have been identified and nano-drops are being modernized for producing an intensity vs concentration graph. The trend of this graph is different for each structural complexity of DNA, hence one can easily distinguish between broken or un-broken DNA samples.