Description

PhaseShield™ Gel Tubes are preloaded phase-separation tubes that improve the safety, yield, and reproducibility of phenol-chloroform and chloroform-based nucleic acid extraction. As a high-performance alternative to traditional Phase Lock Gel (PLG) tubes, the specialized gel forms a stable physical barrier between the aqueous and organic phases during centrifugation, driven by density differences.

The barrier prevents phenol or chloroform carryover into the aqueous layer, enabling clean recovery of DNA or RNA without interphase contamination. By replacing manual phase separation with a one-step pour-off, PhaseShield™ Gel Tubes increase nucleic acid recovery yields by up to 30% while significantly reducing operator exposure to hazardous organic solvents.

Available in Heavy and Light density grades and compatible with all standard phenol-chloroform extraction protocols and centrifuges.

PhaseShield™ Extraction Workflow

Why Teams Switch from Manual Phase Separation to PhaseShield™

The failure mode we’re solving. Standard phenol-chloroform protocols ask the technician to pipette the aqueous phase off a soft, mobile interphase by hand. Two things go wrong: (1) careful pipetting leaves 10–30% of the aqueous phase behind to avoid disturbing the interphase, and (2) less-careful pipetting drags phenol carryover into the recovered fraction, where it inhibits reverse transcriptase, polymerases, and ligases downstream.

How PhaseShield™ is built differently. A preloaded polymer gel sits in the bottom of every tube. After centrifugation, the gel migrates between the aqueous and organic layers and locks them apart. The aqueous fraction can be poured or pipetted off in a single motion — no interphase to navigate, no pipette guesswork, no organic carryover. Result: up to 30% higher recovery, far lower run-to-run variability, and a measurable drop in phenol exposure.

Specification

Specification	Gel Density Grade
Options	Heavy / Light

Selection Guide

Aqueous phase	Organic phase
Aqueous phase	Phenol/chloroform/ isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1)	Chloroform/isoamyl alcohol (24:1)	Water/buffers sat. chloroform (24:1)	Water or buffers saturated phenol
<0.5 M NaCl	H, L	H, L	H, L	L
<1 mg/ml BSA	H, L	H, L	H, L	L
Plasmid DNA extraction	H	H	H	X
Tissue homogenate DNA	H, L	H, L	H, L	L
RNA extraction	H	H	H	L

Heavy vs. Light — quick guide: Heavy grade for plasmid DNA, RNA, and viscous high-impurity samples. Light grade for restriction digestion, cDNA synthesis, and conventional tissue DNA extraction. If both grades fit your protocol, default to Heavy — it tolerates a wider range of sample loads.

Typical Centrifugation Conditions

Tube Type	Centrifuge Type	Typical g-force	Time
2 mL PLG tube	Fixed-angle rotor	12,000–16,000 × g	1–2 min
2 mL PLG tube	Swinging-bucket rotor	12,000–16,000 × g	1–2 min
15 mL PLG tube	Fixed-angle rotor	1,500–2,000 × g	3–5 min
15 mL PLG tube	Swinging-bucket rotor	1,500–2,500 × g	3–5 min
50 mL PLG tube	Fixed-angle rotor	2,000–3,000 × g	5 min
50 mL PLG tube	Swinging-bucket rotor	2,000–3,500 × g	5 min

Note: First-time use — pre-spin empty tubes at 1,500–2,500 × g for 30–60 s to seat the gel cleanly at the bottom before adding sample.

Features

1. Stable phase-separation barrier. A consistent gel layer forms between aqueous and organic phases on every spin. Survives standard fixed-angle and swinging-bucket rotors at the recommended g-force.

2. Up to 30% higher nucleic acid recovery. Pour or pipette off the entire aqueous phase without leaving safety margin behind. Every spin, every operator.

3. Zero organic carryover into downstream reactions. Phenol- and chloroform-free aqueous fraction goes directly into RT-PCR, qPCR, cDNA synthesis, NGS library prep, or restriction digestion — no inhibitor cleanup step.

4. Heavy and Light density grades. Heavy for plasmid DNA, RNA, and viscous high-impurity samples. Light for restriction digestion, cDNA synthesis, and conventional tissue DNA extraction. Pick the grade that matches your protocol — see Selection Guide above.

5. Reduced operator exposure to hazardous solvents. Single-motion pour-off cuts pipetting time and aerosol generation per sample. Lowers risk in high-throughput pipelines and training labs.

6. Universal protocol compatibility. Drops into any phenol-chloroform or TRIzol®-style workflow. No protocol rewrites, no proprietary buffers required.

Applications

Total RNA isolation (TRIzol®, TRI Reagent®, QIAzol®): clean aqueous-phase recovery for RT-PCR, qPCR, RNA-seq, microarray, and Northern blot — eliminates phenol carryover that inhibits reverse transcriptase
miRNA and small RNA recovery: stable interphase preserves the small-RNA fraction otherwise lost when pipetting against a soft phenol cushion
Genomic DNA extraction (phenol–chloroform): high-molecular-weight gDNA from blood, tissue, and cultured cells without shearing — suitable input for long-read sequencing (PacBio HiFi, Oxford Nanopore)
Plasmid DNA purification: phenol-chloroform cleanup of plasmid preps after alkaline lysis, including large constructs where silica-column kits cap out (Heavy grade)
Viral RNA from inactivated cell culture supernatant (research use): phase separation after TRIzol-LS® lysis — for samples that have been chemically inactivated prior to extraction
Cell-free DNA / RNA from plasma and serum: liquid biopsy, ctDNA, and exosomal RNA workflows where any interphase contamination directly hits assay sensitivity
Samples with thick or unstable interphase: the gel barrier locks the interphase no matter how messy it is — clean pour-off from plant tissue (polysaccharide / polyphenol), bacterial / yeast / fungal lysates, viscous tissue homogenates, and FFPE / archival / forensic samples that produce mobile, hard-to-pipette boundaries by hand
Input-sensitive library prep (RNA-seq, WGS, methyl-seq, ChIP / RIP / CLIP-seq): recovery volume is set by the barrier, not by the operator — removes pipetting variance between technicians, gives reproducible input across plates and runs, and the phenol-free aqueous fraction goes directly into Tn5 / ligation / polymerase reactions without an inhibitor cleanup step
Manual workflows that intentionally stay manual: small-batch extractions (1–24 samples), irreplaceable or low-input clinical and archival samples that can’t go onto plate-based automation, and lab-specific protocols where TRIzol® / phenol-chloroform was chosen on purpose over column or magnetic-bead kits. The gel barrier removes the slowest, most variable step in those workflows — and the pour-off cuts phenol aerosol exposure for trainees and routine users alike

Ordering Information

Product: PhaseShield™ Gel Tubes (15ml)

Quantity: 100 Tubes per pack

Default Grade: Heavy / Light

Documents

📄 MSDS 📄 Manual-Light 📄 Manual-Heavy

PhaseShield™ Gel Tubes (100×15 mL)