A Comparison of Two Methods of Eluting Insect Dna from Flinders Technology Associates Cards

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Flinders Technology Associates (FTATM) cards contain chemicals that lyse cells and protect DNA from degradation for room-temperature storage (WhatmanTM, 2009). Consequently, DNA extrac tion takes less time and storage requires less en ergy and space than traditional methods requir ing lysis, purification, and -20 °C storage in tubes. These cards are also easy to transport and face fewer shipping restrictions and less opportunity for damage than mounted specimens or those stored in alcohol. DNA stored on FTATM cards pro duces a full allele compliment during genotyping after 11 yr (Kline, 2010) and the manufacturer re ports successful PCR with FTATM stored DNA for 17 yr and counting (WhatmanTM, 2009). Despite these benefits, this technology has been utilized infrequently with insects and other arthropods (Miller et al. 2012). Desloire et al. (2006) report ed mixed results obtaining successful PCR from mite DNA and Bujang et al. (2011) were unable to obtain successful PCR reactions from termite DNA when using the manufacturer's protocol. This lead to the development of an alternative method of preparing an FTATMarchived sample for successful PCR (Bujang et al. 2011). There may be several hurdles impeding broader use of the FTATM technology by arthropod research ers. First, the DNA quality and quantity of the washed, single-use, FTATM disc is untestable leading to uncertainty about the cause when PCR fails and second, the wash reagents are relatively expensive ($0.23-$0.36 for two 200uL FTATM puri fication reagent washes). Initial attempts to PCR amplify FTATM archived whitefly DNA using the manufacturer's protocol and the methods of Bu jang et al. (2011) yielded mixed results but PCR was successful when discs were boiled for 5 min in