THOROLD, ON, Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Norgen Biotek Corp., an innovative privately held Canadian biotechnology company focusing primarily on advancing powerful tools for nucleic acid and protein stabilization and purification, today announced their unique cf-DNA/cf-RNA Preservative Tubes were found to be the most suitable for liquid biopsy when compared to other leading competitor's blood collection tubes (BCTs). This finding can be viewed in a recent publication in the International Journal of Medical Sciences which highlights the key benefits of Norgen's cf-DNA/cf-RNA Preservation Tubes for the analysis of circulating nucleic acids in liquid biopsies (https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/20/3/704).

Scientists at the University Hospital of Heidelberg and the German Cancer Center carried out studies to test the limits of conventional EDTA tubes as well as long-term storage blood collection tubes (BCTs) from four different manufacturers for their potential applications in clinical diagnostics, including Norgen's cf-DNA/cf-RNA Preservative Tubes, Streck's Cell-Free DNA Tubes, Roche Diagnostic's Cell-Free DNA Collection Tube and PreAnalytiX's PAXgene Blood ccfDNA Tubes. Their findings were recently published in the paper "Evaluation of Storage Tubes for Combined Analysis of Circulating Nucleic Acids in Liquid Biopsies", and the following conclusions were made: First, they found that Norgen's tube is one of the best at stabilizing cf-miRNAs, and thus the most suitable for clinical use when performing liquid biopsies.  Second, in terms of stability of cfDNA, they found that "Norgen outperformed the other manufacturers in the amount of cfDNA isolated". Third, the researchers went on to note the advantages that Norgen's tubes do not rely on formaldehyde fixation, which is a harsh treatment, as well as the fact that blood can be stored for up to 30 days before processing.  Furthermore, the group stated that Norgen's tubes are "compatible for the extraction of both cfDNA and cfRNA, whereas the other manufacturers supply separate tubes for RNA analysis, making it costlier not only financially but also in terms of the sample amount available.  Therefore, for combinatorial marker studies, Norgen tubes are desirable".  Lastly, the group noted that when they studied the size profiles of the extracted cfDNA, all the tubes had similar peak sizes ranging from 168 to 180 bp, with the exception of Norgen's tubes which had peak sizes around 146 bp.  They postulated that since the length of DNA wrapped around one nucleosome is 146 bp, this size may recapitulate the length of cfDNA in circulation while the larger fragments found in the other BCTs might indicate that cfDNA originating from blood cells was released during pre-analytical processes and therefore is not true cfDNA.  Overall, the group concluded that no hemolysis was observed in PAX and Norgen tubes for up to one week, indicating that either of these tubes may be the best choice when analyzing both cf-miRNA and cfDNA stored for up to 1 week.

"I am delighted that these scientists concluded what had already been found by our scientists – Norgen's BCT tubes outperform the competition. It is our commitment to quality and novelty that enabled us to develop this Best-In-Class and First-In-Class product. This is the only product that preserves for 30 days, and gets you both the cf-DNA and cf-RNA from the same tube, so that one can study both genomics and transcriptomics. Furthermore, Norgen's cf-DNA/cf-RNA BCT tubes are very suitable for ct-DNA studies.  Norgen is proud to offer the scientific community a full solution for liquid biopsies from preservation to isolation manually or using automation" said Dr. Yousef Haj-Ahmad, President & CEO of Norgen Biotek. For more information, please join us for our webinar entitled "Recent Advances in the Preservation and Purification of Plasma cf-DNA and cf-RNA" on February 20, 2019 at 10:00 AM EST at https://norgenbiotek.com/webinars.

About Norgen Biotek Corp.
Norgen Biotek Corp., an ISO 13485:2016, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 15189:2012 registered company, is a privately-held Canadian biotech company committed to providing innovative products and services to the life sciences and pharmaceutical industry. Norgen is applying its proprietary technologies to develop best-in-class products for the stabilization and purification of nucleic acids and proteins, as well as for molecular diagnostics.

SOURCE Norgen Biotek Corp.