Nucleics

CounterTrace II Quick Start Guide

Quick start users guide for the CounterTrace II DNA sequencing software and reagent with the ABI 3730 and 3730xl DNA sequencing instruments

CounterTrace II Quick Start Guide

CounterTrace II DNA sequencing Quick Start Guide

Step 1: Installing the CounterTrace II software

  1. Create a new folder called CounterTraceII on your computer.
  2. Copy the CounterTrace.exe and ctw.chm files into the CounterTraceII folder.

Step 2: CounterTrace II Spectral Calibration

  1. Add 3 µl of 1000x CounterTrace Loading Additive to 997 µl of sterile water (3x final conc.) or 0.1 mM EDTA pH7.4
  2. Aliquot 10 µl into each well of a 96-well plate, or one quadrant of a 384-well plate. For 48 capillary array ABI 3730 DNA sequencer use only 48 position wells.
  3. Run the plate on an ABI 3730 sequencer using either one of the following modules and run times:
    • StdSeq36_POP7 module with a run time of 2800 seconds (36cm capillary arrays).
    • LongSeq50_POP7 module with a run time of 6100 seconds (50cm capillary array).
  4. Once the plate run has completed, choose CounterTrace Spectral Calibration from the Process menu of the CounterTrace II software and select the folder containing the calibration (standard only) traces and press OK. A CounterTrace spectral calibration file called machines.ctc will be created after approximately 30 seconds in the CounterTraceII folder.

Step 3: Determining the optimal CounterTrace Loading Additive concentration:

  1. Perform 30 standard DNA sequencing reactions using a control DNA template (e.g. pGEM-3Z). Clean the reactions using your normal sequencing clean-up protocol.
  2. For each 10µl of cleaned DNA sequencing reaction add 2 µl of CounterTrace Loading Additive (CLA) diluted to one of the following concentrations: 6x (1 µl CLA + 167 µl H20), 12x (2 µl CLA + 16 6µl H20), 18x (3 µl CLA + 165 µl H20), 24x (4 µl CLA + 164 µl H20) and 30x (5 µl CLA + 163 µl H20). With each CLA concentration make six reaction replicates (i.e. six of the 6x, 12x, 18x, 24x and 30x dilutions).
  3. Run the DNA sequencing reactions using the sequencer run module and times used in Step 2.
  4. Once the run has finished, choose Add Trace Folder from the File menu and select the run folder containing the 30 trace files. Choose the output folder from the File menu. Click Start in the Process menu to process the trace files.
  5. After the traces are all processed, look at the status panel and identify the lowest CounterTrace Loading Additive concentration at which the fewest Can’t find standard errors occur. This concentration is the optimal CounterTrace Loading Additive concentration for your samples. For example, if 18x, 24x and 30x all gave the lowest number of errors then the 18x concentration is optimal.

Step 4: Running CounterTrace II on your samples

  1. Add the optimal CounterTrace Loading Additive concentration as determined in Step 3 to your cleaned production DNA sequencing samples and run on the sequencer using the run module and time used in Step 2.
  2. Process the trace files with the CounterTrace II software as described in Step 3.4 Compare the sequencing files before (run folder) and after (output folder) processing to determine the improvement in read length and sequence quality provide by CounterTrace II.

Further information can be obtained from the CounterTrace II DNA sequencing software help function or by emailing our support team at {This email is obscured. Your must have javascript enabled to see it}