Nucleic acid recovery from complex environmental samples

Purdy, K. J. (2005) Nucleic acid recovery from complex environmental samples. In: Environmental Microbiology. Methods in Enzymology, 397. Elsevier Academic Press Inc, San Diego, pp. 271-292. ISBN 0076-6879 doi: 10.1016/s0076-6879(05)97016-x

Abstract/Summary

Effective extraction of nucleic acid from environmental samples is an essential starting point in the molecular analysis of microbial communities in the environment. However, there are many different extraction methods in the literature and deciding which one is best suited to a particular sample is very difficult. This article details the important steps and choices in deciding how to extract nucleic acids from environmental samples and gives specific details of one method that has proven very successful at extracting DNA and RNA from a range of different samples.