The objective of our work was to verify the clinical usefulness of Roche MagNA Pure system for extraction of human genomic DNA from whole blood, and to compare it to Qiagen microcolumn-based extraction system. We examined the MagNA Pure LC DNA Isolation Kit I on the MagNA Pure LC Instrument. Intra-assay precision determined on pooled blood samples was 5.4% and day-to-day precision was 7.8%. DNA purity was 1.9 ± 0.1. The mean recovery within the DNA range 2.2–35.0 µg was 43%. A comparison of the MagNA Pure extraction process to Qiagen procedure performed on 32 human venous blood specimens gave statistically very similar DNA yields (6.2 ± 1.0 vs. 6.5 ± 1.0 µg). A regression equation was Y = 0.86X + 0.66 (r = 0.93, P < 0.001). Three various real-time PCRs evaluated via the crossing point analysis showed similar amplification profiles. Both compared extraction systems provide DNA of high quantity, purity and PCR amplificability. The MagNA Pure instrument contributes to reliable and comfortable preparation of DNA samples for consequent molecular analyses.

        Key words: DNA, automated extraction, paramagnetic microparticles, verification, PCR.