calwaterbear
Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2012
- Messages
- 248
Wait a minute, this makes no sense to me.
CWB is this how DNA samples are prepared????
Yup, believe it or not. You could put a tissue sample in a blender to start the process. Essentailly you are mechanically breaking apart the cells, so your chemicals can work on the cell membranes to break them down, to get at the DNA. On a big sample we use a blender (I do a beginning lab on DNA in my classes where we use either dog nuts or bananas, put em in a blender, then use salt, meat tenderizer, and dishsoap in a process that actually yields alot of DNA) . for a smaller sample you often just crush it up - like in a minature mortar and pestle.
for dealing with small amounts of DNA, particularly hair, all you need is a single hair, but in that case, instead of mechanically breaking apart the cells, you usea chemical digestion process that bhraks down the outside protein sheath of the hair, leaving you access to internal cells, which you then process.
The theory and work flow of how to get DNA is pretty simple. The devil is in the details!
CWB