Everything great about stability

  • Published: 17 Array 2022
We are having a stability appreciation month, so here are all the good things related to stability from experiment set-up to logistics. 

As you might have heard, all enzymes produced at Solis BioDyne are exceptionally stable at room temperature due to a specific genetic modification - Stability TAG, which we are very proud of. Stability TAG increases polypeptide shelf life and its tolerance for temperature at a wider scale without compromising the properties of the polypeptide itself. After being stored at room temperature for one month, there is no detectable change in the performance of the enzymes. Therefore, you can do all your experiments without ice and if for some reason you forget to put Solis BioDyne’s products back to the refrigerator or the power goes out, nothing bad happens. Solis BioDyne has also been granted several patents for the Stability TAG, including EP2501716B1 and US9321999B2 [1][2].

What does stability mean from the logistic perspective?

Because our products are so stable we have been sending them out at room temperature for 27 years. Not only is it good for the environment, lowering our carbon footprint and reducing trash, but it’s also financially much more reasonable and significantly lowers the amount of time it takes to send out the order. The latter gave our logistics department more than enough time to share some fun facts with you. 
  • In 2021 we sent around 95 % of orders at room temperature. 
  • Shipping the products on blue ice is on average 3 times more expensive than shipping the same package at room temperature (data from 2022). 
  • Our clients save > 2500 styrofoam boxes every year.
  • It takes 3 times longer to pack the products with blue ice, then it takes to put them in the cardboard box or padded envelope. (For larger orders it might even take up to 9 times longer.)
  • On average it takes us 10 minutes to send out your order when it is shipped at room temperature.
  • In the EU it takes up to 3 days to receive your order. Outside the EU up to 7 days.
Below you can see an example of our products’ stability. This is important knowledge for our partners who are located far away from us and may experience shipping problems. In exceptional cases our orders might have to wait in the customs for 2 weeks or longer. That is when the extra stability is most useful. Having a qPCR product that is 2 weeks stable at 37 °C means that temperature fluctuations to higher temperatures during difficult shipping conditions will not damage the products properties. In addition there are some regions where dry ice shipping is not possible or desired, which makes our products much more conveniently available around the world.

Table 1. Exceptional Stability of SolisFAST® products. All tested products were at least 2 weeks stable at 37 °C, 1 year stable at +4 °C and 2 years at -20 °C.  All reference dye formats of SolisFAST® SolisGreen qPCR Mix and SolisFAST qPCR Mix with UNG are stable for at least 3 months at room temperature (+25 °C). All reference dye formats of the SolisFAST qPCR Mix without UNG are stable at +25 °C for 6 months. 
 
Note that these products are not lyophilized! These are liquid, ready-to-use master mixes  - only add your primers and/or probes and your DNA sample and you are ready to go! 

In conclusion, choosing Solis BioDyne’s famously stable products will lower your carbon footprint, save money and everything will get done faster. So, what are you still waiting for? Your ideal product is just one click away at our e-shop.

References: 
[1] Kahre, O. et al. and Solis BioDyne (2015), Compositions for increasing polypeptide stability and activity, and related methods, EP2501716B1
[2] Kahre, O. et al. and Solis BioDyne (2016), Compositions for increasing polypeptide stability and activity, and related methods, US9321999B2