To help labs pursue more sustainable practices, Thermo Fisher Scientific has launched a next generation Invitrogen™ TaqMan™ Cells-to-CT™ Express Kit, offering simplified, scalable workflows for gene expression analysis that produce less plastic waste. With improved chemistry, the Cells-to-CT Express Kit helps facilitate the preparation of cell lysates for reverse transcription (RT) real-time PCR (qPCR) in just five minutes.
RT-qPCR is commonly performed to support gene expression analysis, which compares the expression of genes between two or more samples and can help researchers determine gene expression targets for additional study. In turn, gene expression analysis can enable and guide more efficient drug development research.
With the Cells-to-CT Express Kit, researchers can measure relative gene expression while skipping the traditional RNA purification step when performing RT-qPCR. Instead, with only five minutes of prep time required, they can go directly from cultured cells to RT-qPCR. This not only promotes a faster workflow overall, with results delivered from an entire plate of cells in 70 minutes, but also reduces the plastic waste generated from the process.
With the Cells-to-CT Express Kit, the amount of waste generated is approximately 8.1 grams of plastic. In contrast, with a traditional RNA purification kit, the waste generated is approximately 106.9 grams. This is equivalent to a 92.4 percent reduction in plastic waste when using the Cells-to-CT Express Kit.
“As part of Thermo Fisher’s mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer, we have developed the new Invitrogen TaqMan Cells-to-CT Express Kit. Using a fast and streamlined workflow, this innovative kit generates consistent and highly sensitive results enabling drug developers to get new treatments to market faster. Additionally, it is estimated that labs worldwide produce a combined 5.5 million tons of plastic waste each year. The TaqMan Cells to Ct Express Kit has been designed to reduce plastic waste by greater than 92 percent, helping labs transition to more sustainable practices,” said Ellie Mahjubi, vice president and general manager of sample preparation, Thermo Fisher Scientific.