Extraction of high-quality plant genomic DNA for PCR amplification is challenging due to the presence of inhibitors such as polysaccharides, secondary metabolites, and polyphenolics. Inhibitors mainly act by interfering with cell lysis needed for DNA extraction, by nucleic acid degradation or capture, or by inhibiting polymerase activity for amplification of target DNA.1 Inhibition may be total or partial, and can manifest itself as complete reaction failure or as reduced sensitivity of detection. In come cases, inhibition may be the cause of false-negative reactions. Many laboratories have circumvented this problem and used their own protocols to rid their samples of polyphenolics, e.g., using detergents such as CTAB. However, these methods are labor-intensive and are difficult to adapt for high-throughput analysis.
Epicentre has designed products for plant leaf DNA extraction (for PCR and downstream applications), and plant seed DNA extraction (PCR only).
Please see below for a list of plant-specific products from Epicentre:
DNA Extraction/Purification
RNA Purification
Sample Prep for RNA-Seq
References
- Wilson, IG (1997) App. Environ. Microbiol. 63, 3741.