Silica Gel Drying of Sea Cucumber Tissue as an Alternative to Extraction Buffer or Ethanol for Preservation of DNA

Arom Mucharin; Mats Gustafsson; Tomas Cedhagen; Peter Funch

Authors

Arom Mucharin National Science Museum, Technopolis, Khlong 5, Khlong Luang, PathuThani, 12120, Thailand; Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Section of Aquatic Biology, Building 1135, Ole Worms allé 1, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Mats Gustafsson Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Section of Aquatic Biology, Building 1135, Ole Worms allé 1, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Tomas Cedhagen Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Section of Aquatic Biology, Building 1135, Ole Worms allé 1, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Peter Funch Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Section of Aquatic Biology, Building 1135, Ole Worms allé 1, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

Keywords:

Silica gel drying, sea cucumber, DNA, sequencing

Abstract

The material for DNA extraction of sea cucumber which involve refrigeration may not always be convenient because of certain conditions that cannot be achieved. So, we tried out drying the sea cucumber body wall. A comparison is made with traditional ethanol preservation and a modern molecular method in 3 different sampling methods: storage in 96 % Ethanol under refrigeration; storage in RNAlater (Quiagen) under refrigeration and drying in excess silica gel at ambient temperature. The result clearly shows that there is at least some DNA in every samples. Even though it is not an optimial method, silica gel drying can be used for sea cucumber DNA sampling.

References

Houreau, T.B. E. and Boissin 2010. Design of phylum-specific hybrid primers for DNA barcoding: addressing the need for efficient COI amplification in the Echinodermata. Molecular Ecology Resources 10: 960–967.