Comments on: Fun with DNA! (SFW mehtod)

Fun with DNA! (SFW mehtod)

numlok — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:43:02 -0800

How to extract DNA from any living thing. Don't just watch the show, create a CSI lab in your own kitchen!

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:45:54 -0800

By: numlok

numlok — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:52:09 -0800

Wouldn't ya just know it... First FPP, and I wear my noob colors proudly. I did do a search, but only for "extract DNA". My bad (DAMMIT!). Truly sorry to waste time and (precious blue) space. delete.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:57:11 -0800

I missed the previous FPP, numlok, so thanks.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:46:10 -0800

For some reason, the title of the page made me think of of the "King and Queen of Cheese" episode of Cow and Chicken. Pity the process needs a larger quantity of biological matter than could be comfortably extracted from my body. I was so looking forward to seeing what I could get from some spit and an in-cheek-scraping. (No, I will not put cups of semen in the blender.)

By: greatgefilte

greatgefilte — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 22:21:11 -0800

Please, unless all your friends are biologists, do not try this at a party.

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:58:04 -0800

Oh, greatgefilte, I meant to mention this in the old DNA thread before it got locked: I tried the hi voltage/SB buffer system for DNA gels, and it kinda sucks. You can run at 300V without melting your gel, but it will only clearly resolve stuff in the roughly 200-1500 bp range, and it's still kinda streaky. I couldn't get it to look like the pictures on the website of whomever's selling the stuff.

By: carter

carter — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 07:13:14 -0800

I missed this the first time round too, and it's cool! Up there with measuring the speed of light with some marshmallows and a microwave oven.

By: greatgefilte

greatgefilte — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:35:19 -0800

rxrfrx, it takes a little tinkering to get it to work nicely for each particular application. Did you make it yourself or buy it from the company? Maybe your loading dye has too much salt? What percentage of agarose are you using? Drop me an email, I'll try to make it work for you!

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:21:01 -0800

Why did I just add detergent to my pea soup? Ain't that the eternal question.

By: AlexReynolds

AlexReynolds — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:40:09 -0800

Why did I just add detergent to my pea soup? Why this works: The blender breaks walls around plant cells. Detergents and salt break down exposed cell membranes into component fatty acids: endoplasmic reticulum, nuclear and cell membranes, Golgi bodies. This gets the DNA out of the cell nucleus. I'm pretty sure the meat tenderizers (enzymes) break down proteins like nucleases (DNase, RNase) that get released by the detergent/salt treatment. These proteins would otherwise break down the DNA and ruin the extraction. Destroying (denaturing) the nucleases helps keep the DNA intact. Ethyl alcohol pulls the DNA out of the detritus of cell materials.

By: statolith

statolith — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:13:41 -0800

I've tried the SB buffer too...my results were similar, rxrfrx. Works fine unless you want to resolve anything less than about a kb or so.

By: numlok

numlok — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 23:13:49 -0800

Another cool DNA related link (I doubt it warrants a new FPP): dnahack.com.