Preservation of and DNA Extraction from Muscle Tissue.
As well as protecting DNA for subsequent analysis, tissue preservation methods ideally should be safe, readily available, and easy to transport at relatively low cost. Formalin (formaldehyde solution), used extensively to preserve medical and museum specimens, irreparably damages DNA. We have found four tissue preservatives (solid salt, salt-saturated dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)-EDTA solution, ethanol solution, and ethanol-EDTA solution) that preserved muscle tissue at 35 °C for up to 1 month: full short tandem repeat (STR) profiles were obtained after preservation. In addition, salt-saturated DMSO-EDTA solution yielded full STR profiles from aliquots of the liquid preservative surrounding muscle tissue.
National Centre for Forensic Studies, Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia. dennis.mcnevin@canberra.edu.au.
Dennis
D
McNevin
D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D053803:Forensic Genetics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D009132:Muscles / Q000378:metabolism*; D012015:Reference Standards
D004247:DNA
DMSO; DNA extraction; DNA profiling; Dimethyl sulfoxide; EDTA; Ethanol; Salt; Tissue preservation