dna preservation

[Ron Gatrelle]

comments below.

Catherine Young <cjyoung at postoffice.utas.edu.au>
wrote:

> I've never heard that DNA is damaged by water.  It would be hard to
imagine
> how it could survive in the cell if it was.  I routinely dissolve
> precipitated, purified  DNA in water and freeze it as a means of storage.
> However, as far as storing animal body parts goes to optimize DNA yield
the
> best way is freezing preferably at approx.-70 degrees C, but -20 degrees
C
> seems to work fine for the moths I'm working with.  If this is too
> difficult storing in absolute ethanol, preferably keeping them cold as
> well, seems to work almost as well for some organisms.  I've also
> successfully extracted DNA from pinned, dried specimens up to 10 yrs old.
> Other people I know have done the same from 80 yr old specimens.
>   I guess DNA is a remarkably stable molecule.  It needs to be otherwise
> things can go terribly wrong in organism development.   I've also just
> heard that chloroform killed specimens are almost impossible to extract
> from.
>
 I was surprised to think that water would damage it also. Which is why I
posted about it.  A few weeks ago I was down in Gainesville, Fl at the
Department of Plant Industry doing some research and overheard an involved
conversation between some of the Coleoptera (Beetle) guys there about
various ways and means of handling DNA. One guy  got into the water thing
and that "it is the water that deteriorates the --------- in the DNA..."
when stored in it. Don't remember the part of the DNA. It was an
interesting conversation and I kept getting distracted by it.

I have sent specimens to specialists for analysis and just one year old
specimens in heavy pdb fumes have had severely damaged DNA.
Ron


 
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