Summary of Method Advantages and Disadvantages

Method

Advantages

Disadvantages

Yield Gel

• Quality of DNA can be assessed (level of degradation)

• Carcinogenic chemical (EtBr)
• Not as sensitive as other methods
• Uses intercalating dye requiring double-stranded DNA
• Not human DNA specific
• Not automatable

Absorption Spectrophotometry

• Rapid process
• Quality of DNA can be assessed (level of degradation)
• Relatively inexpensive
• Automatable

• Not human DNA specific

Fluorometry

• Semi-selective for double-stranded DNA
• Relatively sensitive for DNA detection
• Automatable

• Not human DNA specific
• Quality of DNA cannot be assessed (level of degradation)

Slot Blot Hybridization

• Human DNA specific
• Easy to analyze

• Not automatable
• More labor intensive than some other methods
• Semi-quantitative
• Quality of DNA cannot be assessed (level of degradation)

AluQuant™

• Sensitive
• Automatable
• Human DNA specific

• Quality of DNA cannot be assessed