How to Purify DNA Using Common Household Items

[maradydd]

Start with a tissue sample.

Place it in a salt buffer -- a saline solution made from purified water and non-iodized table salt. Add a little bit of meat tenderizer (it's a protease) and some shampoo (contains sodium dodecyl sulfate; you want about a 1% solution of this, but you'd have to determine that empirically) and allow to sit at room temperature until it turns into a slurry of formerly tissue, now digested goo.

Place this in a centrifuge -- a salad spinner should work nicely -- until you've separated out the solids from the liquids. Decant the liquid into a separate container. Add a concentrated salt solution so that the final molarity of sodium is ~1M. (You need a high ionic concentration.) Add isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, about 1.5-2x the volume of the existing solution.

You will see a white stringy precipitate. This is DNA.

I love my job.

Comments

[karine.livejournal.com]

*sits there, mouth agape, and then just says* Cool.

- Karine

[shingkhor.livejournal.com]

that is spiffy.

[maddycat.livejournal.com]

MY GOD.
I LOVE YOUR JOB TOO.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Dayum.

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

THAT ... is SO cool. :D

[wabi.livejournal.com]

I remember doing an experiment like this in the lab once when I was an undergrad (no salad spinner, though). The fact that you can actually see precipitated DNA strands is amazing.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

My boss also suggested that a washing machine on the spin cycle might work. The main thing is you just have to be able to accelerate the liquid to a couple of G's in order to separate out the solid bits.

[mycroftxxx.livejournal.com]

Trough Fee Secks!

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I owe this one to Andy. The salad spinner was my idea though.

[mycroftxxx.livejournal.com]

It's a damn sight better than anything I would have come up with. I was thinking of a seperate instruction set to convert a blender into an easily-balanced centrifuge.

[(Anonymous)]

shoooo... O_O
I am absolutely going to try that sometime!
(I wish those "rainy-day craft ideas" books I had when I was little had had something like *that* in them!)

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Head out to your nearest Discovery Channel Store and take a look at the new exclusive DNA Lab. Not only did I wish that these were available when I was ten, but I've sworn that I'm getting one for my niece for her upcoming birthday. After all, why stop at extracting onion DNA when she can go mad with any number of other sources, including family members and friends?

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

The DNA Lab was a big hit at the office too.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Then find someone with an upper respiratory infection, and have them cough into it (to provide a viral transfective vector).

Then inject it into the dog, and let the fun begin!

never has this icon been more appropriate.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahahahahahaaaaa!

[(Anonymous)]

This is Bob the Wonder Geek. I did something like this in high school. We used pieces of onion, evidentally their DNA is easy to get out.

[eleuthera4004.livejournal.com]

We used peas and E coli. Last week! I'm now doing research for the lab report...

:3

[(Anonymous)]

This isn't actually DNA purification, it's extraction from a subject.
The act of purifying the DNA means that you need to make sure it is free of any particles, and is generally used if you're taking your extracted DNA to the next level. Meaning, you're readying it for PCR.
All this does is isolate the DNA strands from the tissue sample, so one can see it with the naked eye.
Just telling you.

I too love the job done by you

[richsmithj.livejournal.com]

This is a really great. These tips are just awesome and helpful for all Testing for DNA (http://dnakits.org/testing-for-dna-in-a-world-of-social-networking.html), like me. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with all of us here.