Abstract
More than 600 herbarium samples from four distantly related groups of flowering plants were used for DNA extraction and subsequent measurements of DNA purity and concentration. We did not find any significant relation between DNA purity and the age of the sample. However, DNA yields were different between plant groups studied. We believe that there there should be no reservations about “old” samples if the goal is to extract more DNA of better purity. We argue that the older herbarium samples are the mine for the future DNA studies, and have the value not less than the “fresh” specimens.
Highlights
Numerous museums and agencies collect millions of herbarium specimens, establishing “dry gardens” that preserve plant species diversity
As all individual models suggest, there is no relation between age of sample and DNA purity
Significant attention was paid to the DNA extraction protocols (Drabkova, Kirschner & Vlcek, 2002; Costa & Roberts, 2014; Drabkova, 2014), and we believe that for the samples originated from herbarium collections the more attention should be devoted to the methods used on the subsequent stages of DNA processing (Telle & Thines, 2008; Kuzmina & Ivanova, 2011; Samarakoon, Wang & Alford, 2013)
Summary
Numerous museums and agencies collect millions of herbarium specimens, establishing “dry gardens” that preserve plant species diversity. The study of “ancient DNA” originated from herbarium collections, even from old ones, and has already provided many useful results which argue strongly for the preservation of museum collections. DNA was successfully extracted, amplified, and sequenced from two historical Pinus collections dated from 1811 (De Castro & Menale, 2004). Roullier and others (2013) used samples dated back to 1769 to clarify the distribution routes of sweet potato in the Oceania. The recently published research on the origin of watermelon (Chomicki & Renner, 2015) used the successfully amplified and sequenced DNA from the herbarium sample of watermelon holotype collected in 1773
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