RAPID AND EFFICIENT METHOD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DNA EXTRACTION AND PURIFICATION FROM SOIL

Abstract

Large proportion of microbial population in the world is unculturable. Extraction of total DNA from soil is usually a crucial step considering to the difficulties of study the uncultivable microorganisms. Humic acid is considered as the main inhibitory agent in the environmental DNA studies. Here, we introduced a rapid and efficient method for DNA extraction and purification from soil. Yield of DNA extraction by the presented method was 130 ng/µl. Three conventional methods of DNA extraction including liquid nitrogen incursion, bead beating and sonication were performed as control methods. Yield of DNA extraction by these methods were 110, 90 and 50 ng/µl, respectively. A rapid and efficient one step DNA purification method was introduced instead of hazardous conventional phenol-chloroform methods. Humic acid removal percentage by the introduced method was 95.8 % that is comparable with 97 % gained by the conventional gel extraction method and yield of DNA after purification was 84 % and 73 %, respectively. This study could be useful in molecular ecology and metagenomics study as a fast and reliable method.