[Nhcoll-l] Kaiserling III/glycerol and DNA preservation question

[Sebastien Enault]

Dear all,
I have a couple of questions regarding fluid collections on behalf of some
colleagues (that do not work in the same country/institution) who are not
on NHCOLL and don't speak good english. They are looking into transferring
a collection, mostly ichthyological in nature, currently being held in
formaldehyde (no data on the concentration, buffer etc) to kaiserling III
or glycerol (concentration of the latter to be determined, but mentions
have been made of 65% (based on the publications of McLeod) to pure
glycerol). The collection has been mostly untouched for at least 50 years.
While I understand there are many issues associated with such a choice and
such a strategy has been repeatedly advised against, I'm not making the
decisions here and from what I understood ethanol is out of the question
for safety, volume and infrastructure issues.

What I'm mostly interested in is the following: is there any data regarding
the conservation of DNA in kaiserling of glycerol preserved specimens?
While I know that formaldehyde does a lot of damage to DNA, various papers
have reported some degree of success in extracting genetic data from such
preserved specimens. Considering there might still be something to salvage
after 50+ years in formaldehyde, and if they do indeed go ahead with the
project, would it be of any interest to sample a small piece of muscle
tissue on the specimens for separate storage in ethanol, and if so, what
would be the best way to do it? Or is it a lost cause?

Many thanks in advance and best,
Sebastien
======================
Sebastien Enault, PhD
www.kraniata.com
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