LINEAR ACRYLAMIDE AS CARRIER FOR DNA PRECIPITATION
Linear polyacrylamide is an efficient carrier for precipitation of picogram amounts of nucleic acids with ethanol. It is cheap,easy to make and can be stored in refrigerator for several years. For complete reference of the method see: Ethanol precipitation of DNA with linear polyacrylamide as carrier. Gillard, C and Strauss F. Nucleic Acid Research, Vol. 18. No. 2. page 378. 1990.
Method:
Prepare a 5% solution of acrylamide (without bis-acrylamide) in 40 mM Tris-HCl, pH 7.8, 20 mM Na Acetate, 1 mM EDTA.
Add 1/100 volume of a 10% solution of ammonium persulfate and 1/1,000 volume of TEMED. Mix it gently and let polymerize for 30-60 minutes.
When the solution has become viscous, add 2.5 volumes of ethanol to precipitate the polyacrylamide. Mix it and let stand it for 10-15 minutes.
Centrifuge the precipitated polyacrylamide at 10,000 rpm for 10 minutes.
Remove the supernatant and dissolve the pellet in 20 volumes of water by shaking overnight.
The polyacrylamide solution (0.25% final concentration) can be stored in refrigerator for several years. Aliquot part of the sample in eppendorf tubes (100 ml per tube) so you may not contaminate the stock by continuously mowing it in and out from the refrigerator.
For DNA precipitation add 10-15 ml of the linear polyacrylamide to the DNA solution to be precipitated. Proceed with the standard precipitation procedure
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