Simultaneous Isolation of Total Cellular Lipids and RNA from Cultured Cells

Abstract

Lipid biochemists often need to analyze total cellular lipids as well as cellular messenger RNA (mRNA) levels. Conventionally, different cell samples are used for extraction of each class of biomolecule. Here, we describe a procedure for the simultaneous isolation of both total cellular lipids and total RNA from the same sample. The method is based on the fact that mild organic solvents efficiently extract lipids but do not disrupt/degrade cellular RNA. This procedure not only reduces the time and expense of analysis, but also allows a direct investigation of any correlation between lipid and transcript levels. While this method has only been applied in fibroblasts, prior delipidation of samples may be useful for extraction of nucleic acids from lipid-rich cells such as adipocytes. However, its application to other eukaryotic cell types needs to be tested. The method may not be useful in plant cells or bacterial cells, which are structurally quite different from eukaryotic cells.