Ancient DNA extraction and amplification

[Harvey E. Ballard, Jr.]

A "seminal" article on ancient DNA extraction and amplification is:
Paabo, S. 1990.  Amplifying ancient DNA.  In: Innis, M. A., D. H. Gelfand,
J. J. Sninsky & T. J. White (eds.).  PCR Protcols: A guide to methods and
applications.  Academic Press, San Diego.  pp. 159-166.

For extraction of old herbarium material, at least--perhaps a far cry from
old fish scales--Mark Chase's lab at Jodrell Labs, Kew Gardens, routinely
keeps their initial isopropanol precipitate, after the grinding extraction
step, in a refrigerator-freezer for a week, to encourage the degraded DNA
to precipitate more effectively, before proceeding to rinsing steps.  We're
trying it here with recalcitrant plant groups (monocots in general) that
don't seem to work well with herbarium specimen extractions, and it looks
like the "delayed gratification" step will help.

Good Luck!

Harvey Ballard

--
Harvey E. Ballard, Jr.
Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison
132 Birge, 430 Lincoln Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1381
Fax: (608) 262-7509; office phone: (608) 262-2792 (Rm. 161, Herbarium);
Sytsma lab phone: (608) 262-4422
e-mail: hballard at students.wisc.edu  OR  hbviolet at macc.wisc.edu