AMRESCO’s molecular biology grade glycogen is an inert carrier that increases the recovery of nucleic acids after alcohol precipitation. Insoluble in ethanol or isoproanol, glycogen traps the nucleic acids during precipitation and forms a visible pellet upon centrifugation. As an inert co-precipitant, glycogen efficiently recovers from dilute solutions DNA or RNA molecules ranging in size from small oligonucleotides to megabase molecules.
Glycogen is a highly purified branched chain carbohydrate that does not add exogenous nucleic acids to the sample as do other coprecipitants such as yeast RNA or tRNA. AMRESCO’s Glycogen Solution, 20mg/ml, is free of host DNA and is functionally tested for DNA precipitation. It will not affect DNA/RNA concentration measurements determined by A260/280 ratios. At concentrations less than ~8 μg/μl, glycogen will not interfere with downstream applications including most enzymatic reactions or electrophoresis.