What is coupling efficiency?

Coupling efficiency is a way of measuring how efficiently the DNA synthesizer is adding new bases to the growing DNA chain. If every available base on the DNA chain reacted successfully with the new base, the coupling efficiency would be 100%. Few chemical reactions are 100% efficient. The industry standard for coupling efficiency during DNA synthesis is around 98,5%, with maximum coupling efficiency obtainable being around 99%. This means that at every coupling step approximately at least 1% of the available bases fail to react with the new base being added. Coupling efficiency is significantly influenced by the quality of raw material (amidites and solutions), instruments and synthesis protocols used.

Please note that metabion regularly overperforms the industry standards written above, reaching a coupling efficiency of up to 99,7%, even for long unmodified oligonucleotides.

Moreover, metabion's Quality Control (QC) system ensures that every new batch of chemicals passes strict quality controls. Our machines are serviced by a well organised maintenance program and synthesis cycles are perfectly adjusted to the type of ordered oligo.