Australia's Science Forum

Has anyone used split peas to extract DNA and if so, can you lift the DNA out of the solution.

That was the only DNA extraction we used to do before we discovered bananas, onions, kiwifruit, strawberries etc. Works well but you have to soak them overnight to soften them and I used to crush them using mortar and pestle.
J

We always use split peas, blend for about 15secs with water. I'm sure the recipe is on here somewhere.
Ellice.

Thanks for the replies re: split pea DNA but I have switch to using bananas instead of split peas and I don't need the meat tenderiser. it was very successful.

We use the split peas as they are cheap and can be kept in the cupboard till required. I omitted the tenderiser step(as it was hard to buy) and they worked fine.

We blend dry split peas to a powder. Carry out the experiment as directed the rest of the way. We use a glass hook to pull out the DNA strands.

I use strawberries or kiwi fruit and works well. We're doing the DNA extraction for one of the classes tomorrow.

Did it again today with strawberries and worked wonderfully. If looking for meat tenderiser it can be found at the supermarkets with the herb and spices. Master Foods have it in a 70g jar.

I always use bananas as they are diploid or sometimes triploid so always heaps of DNA. I have also have a method that is very simple with a lot less cleaning involved. Guaranteed to work every time. Here is a picture of an extraction from last week.

No mess strawberry dna extraction

Gee nickyw.. that is a lot of DNA.. very impressive. Can you let us know your process please?

Much the same as smeee. Can use this method with strawberries kiwi fruit etc.

When it's DNA extraction time, we have junior classes use strawberries. What do you use for senior bio? It seems a bit boring to do the same thing. The teacher has requested chicken liver and the method requires boiling the blended mixture for 5 minutes ). I have suggested blended banana (so feeling a little bit more "scientific" compared to zip lock bags - and I have just thought of mortar and pestle as I type this...) but am open to other ideas that are different to the strawberries.

I run with the idea that the senior students don't remember what they did in junior years. Once had a Bio class insist they had never used microscopes before!
We just stick with strawberries. I buy frozen ones so they are on hand. We often do this prac out of strawberry season and the frozen ones are cheaper at that time.

Merilyn1 wrote: ↑27 Oct 2023, 12:10 I run with the idea that the senior students don't remember what they did in junior years. Once had a Bio class insist they had never used microscopes before!
We just stick with strawberries. I buy frozen ones so they are on hand. We often do this prac out of strawberry season and the frozen ones are cheaper at that time.

I do the same! I have the bag of frozen strawberries there ready to go and also a bottle of metho stored in the freezer. I spoke to the teacher and he said he would like an animal based DNA prac. They did the strawberries last year in yr 10 and I think also in yr 8...

Animal based?? Oh yuk, not the liver. Got to love teachers and their "ideas"!

I couldn’t get chicken liver or lamb liver so I got a lamb kidney instead! Can you see any reason this wouldn’t work the same as the liver? It’s going in a blender and then filtered through a chux so the nephrons shouldn’t really create a problem, or would they? I am seriously doubting my brain at the moment!!! There are strawberries in the freezer if everything fails!!