Plasmid purification is a common technique in most molecular biology labs. While the standard alkaline lysis method had been well established, a surprising number of things still can go wrong. This guide lists some of the common Dos and Don’ts of plasmid purification.

Modern genomics seems to be undergoing a shift from using short-read technologies to sequence large numbers of genomes with the aim of detecting SNPs, to sequencing fewer genomes using long-read technologies that can resolve more complex events, e.g., structural rearrangements, copy number variations, and repeat expansions.