Formaldehyde fixation of cells does not greatly reduce the ability to amplify cellular DNA.
Formaldehyde fixation of cells is routinely used to study DNA-protein interactions in vivo. In these studies, DNA is often analyzed using a polymerase chain reaction technique. Although it is known that formaldehyde can damage DNA, no studies have been performed so far to compare the efficiency of DNA amplification between normal and fixed cells. Here we show that formaldehyde fixation results in a 15% to 20% reduction in the ability to amplify cellular DNA. The loss of amplifiability is independent of the length of the amplification region and the degree to which DNA is compacted on packaging into chromatin.
Gavrilov
Alexey
A
Laboratory of Structural and Functional Organization of Chromosomes, Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119334 Moscow, Russia. aleksey.a.gavrilov@gmail.com
Razin
Sergey V
SV
D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis*; D005404:Fixatives / Q000737:chemistry*; D005557:Formaldehyde / Q000737:chemistry*; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D011485:Protein Binding
D005404:Fixatives; D005557:Formaldehyde; D004247:DNA