Extraction of Human Genomic DNA from Dried Blood Spots and Hair Roots

Abstract

In most studies about molecular genetics, molecular diagnostics, DNA extraction is considered as the very first step that will give a significant effective. The material used for DNA extraction is vary from fresh blood to dried blood, tissue, oral mucosa and hair root…. The dried blood and hair root are the two materials that easy to collect and can store for long term, which leads to more advantages for many time extractions to have fresh DNA and enough amount DNA for further studies. This study introduces an efficient phenol method with 2 steps of lyses which allows high yield of DNA concentration from dried blood and hair root. Comparing to the commercial QIAamp® DNA Mini Kit which applied for dried blood sample, DNA concentration extracted from this method was higher, the quality of DNA was equal and the cost is lower. Comparing to salting out method, a cheap and safe method, which an applied for hair root, the two-step lysis phenolic method also give higher efficiency. This method could be the useful tool which may apply for further molecular analysis studies using long storing time materials like dried blood spots and hair root samples. The reliability and performance of the molecular diagnostic assays which are polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enzyme digestion and recombinant selection (1) are strongly influenced by the extraction of input material, in this case, the quantity and quality of nucleic acids from clinical samples. Although blood is highly recommended for DNA extraction, for the experiments in the extremely hard working environment, blood may be difficult to be stored in long term. Furthermore the ease of collecting, costs of transporting, costs of storing and pre-processing should be taken all into consideration how to get an optimal choice of samples. Then despite of blood is the most commonly used sample since it provides enough and high quality DNA, people look for other sources which are low cost, easy to collect and convenient to store.