title: An efficient DNA isolation protocol for filamentous cyanobacteria of the genus Arthrospira.
abstract: Thanks to their photosynthetic and nutritive properties, cyanobacteria of the Arthrospira genus are of interest as food supplements, as efficient oxygen producing life support system organisms for manned space flight, and for the production of biofuels. Despite these potential valuable applications, full genome sequences and genetic information in general on Arthrospira remain scarce. This is mainly due to the difficulty to extract sufficient high molecular weight nucleic acids from these filamentous cyanobacteria. In this article, an efficient and reproducible DNA extraction procedure for cyanobacteria of the genus Arthrospira was developed. The method is based on the combination of a soft mechanical lysis with enzymatic disruption of the cell wall. The comparison with other extraction protocols clearly indicates that this optimised method allows the recovery of a larger amount of DNA. Furthermore, the extracted DNA presents a high molecular weight, a reduced degradation and an excellent overall quality. It can be directly used for molecular biology purposes such as PCR, and clone library construction.
authors.affiliation: Expert group for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Belgian Nuclear Research Center SCK*CEN, 2400 Mol, Belgium. nmorin@sckcen.be
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Morin
authors.forename: Tatiana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vallaeys
authors.forename: Larissa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hendrickx
authors.forename: Leys
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Natalie
authors.forename: Annick
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wilmotte
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001433:Bacteriolysis; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000378:metabolism; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000235:genetics*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D008970:Molecular Weight; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial