Rapid isolation of high molecular weight DNA from marine macroalgae

Abstract

Application of molecular techniques to study marine macroalgae is in its infancy, an is likely to be facilitated by the ability to routinely isolate high quality DNA from these plants. The generally high polysaccharide and polyphenol content in macroalgae, however, often interferes with the isolation and subsequent enzymatic manipulation of their nucleic acids. We describe the use of a CTAB method for the isolation of high molecular weight DNA from marine macroalgae, The method is rapid, simple, inexpensive, does not require density gradient ultracentrifugation, and has general applicability to red, brown and green seaweeds. The isolated DNA appears sufficiently pure for application of most commonly used molecular techniques such as restriction endonuclease digestion, Southern blot hybridization, cloning, and amplification using the polymerase chain reaction. The method was also tested on the marine angiosperm Zostera marina (eelgrass).