The authors describe a technique for magnetic selection of multiple targets in less time than previous studies. Antibodies on the magnetic beads selectively bind their targets and then a first sort can occur. The magnetic beads can then be selectively cleaved in a short amount of time and additional sorts can be used to sort all targets from one another. The purity was high, but the yield of each target was low. For sorting of four different groups this process took 1.5 hours compared to 5 hours by the standard method.
I think this is a pretty elegant system, although it took a lot of re-reading to understand the general scheme. You only need one bead, which has a multitude of DNA sequences, each complementary to the DNA sequence on each unique antibody. You pull out all your target-antibody complexes in one step. But to separate each unique target, all you have to do is add a Displacement Probe (DP), which acts by Strand-Mediated Displacement (SMD). The probe binds the 6 bp toehold and continues annealing by peeling off the EP-antibody, so no cleavage of DNA is occurring.
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