Decontamination solution and its use for denaturation, modification, degradation, solubilisation and removal of proteins, nucleic acid molecules and microorganisms

Abstract

The invention concerns a three component system comprising surface-active substances, vitamins and metal ions for efficient destruction and removal of contaminating proteins, nucleic acids and microorganisms from surfaces like for example laboratory benches, floors, equipment and instruments. These non-corrosive and non-toxic solutions for removal of proteins, nucleic acids and microorganisms are applied by spraying, rubbing or immersion of contaminated surfaces thereby destroying, solubilizing inactivating and removing proteins and nucleic acids. In that way also microorganisms are killed with high efficiency and at the same time all genetic information is inactivated.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention concerns a decontamination solution for the treatment of surfaces that are contaminated by unwanted proteins, nucleic acid molecules or microorganisms. The invention further concerns the use of said decontamination solution and a suitable buffer system.[0002]The dynamic developments in molecular biology stresses the importance of new methods and techniques for detection and amplification of DNA molecules or proteins. [Sambrook, J. et al., eds (1989) Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.]. Latest examples concern medical diagnostics, forensic analysis and biomedical research.[0003]With the invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) it is even possible to detect single molecules. A new problem of the extreme sensitivity of these new detection methods is the contamination of surfaces in laboratories, on equipment or working materials with unwanted nucleic acid m...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0024]The efficient action of the new three component system is even more surprising as it is proven that the different isolated substances alone do not exhibit a special degradation effect and also the mixtures of the components outside the range of the invention are not effective or do only show an unsatisfactory effect. Only the combination of vitamins with metal ions and detergents, preferably in an appropriate mixture, results in a synergistic effect and in a rapid and massive degradation of the biomolecules. In particular, by keeping the correct preferred concentrations, an efficient activity of the decontamination solution according to the invention is ensured.

[0025]In principle thereby all kind of surfaces can be treated in a very gentle way for removal of proteins, nucleic acids contaminations and microorganisms.

Problems solved by technology

Therefore already for a longer time many different decontamination solutions exist that use aggressive chemical agents like for example formaldehyde, alcohols, phenols, sodium azide, sodium hypochloride against microorganisms or strong oxidizing agents like for example hypochloride, bleaching substances or mineralic acids that denature proteins and modify nucleic acids thereby rendering them inappropriate for amplification methods like for example the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), nick translation by the klenow polymerase, strand-displacement amplification, ligase chain reaction, transcription-mediated amplification, rolling-circle-amplification and many others more.

The major disadvantages of these solutions and methods are the only selective actions against proteins, DNA or microorganisms and the incomplete removal of all nucleic acids molecules, the remaining modified molecules, the only partial degradation and the corrosive effect of the applied chemicals against equipment, instruments, surfaces and also against skin and mucous membranes of the customer.

A limited improvement of the efficiency of these methods was achieved by combining the agents in the solution with surface-active chemicals like detergents.

Still the problem of the aggressive chemical substances and the incomplete destruction and removal of nucleic acids, proteins and microorganisms remains.

The disadvantages of the currently known decontamination solutions and methods are their only limited action against different biological molecules like proteins or nucleic acids or only anti-microbial actions and the highly corrosive and aggressive chemical potentials in combination with harmful properties that cause severe health problems.

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