Avoid Shearing
of the DNA by limiting mixing to inversion and gentle shaking. Vortexing
of samples is not required to perform the following protocols.
Avoid
contamination by rigorously cleaning pipetman and using autoclaved tips
during manipulation of genomic DNA and reagents to be used with genomic
DNA.
1. Mice
are toe-clipped and approximately 0.5-1 cm of their tail is snipped
off and placed into a 1.5-ml microcentrifuge tube. Digestion is improved
if the tail piece is cut into several smaller pieces. This tail can
then either be processed immediately or frozen at -20¡C. Under no
circumstances should tails be left at room temperature. If the mice
are younger than 21 days, they can be toe-tagged and the tail cut for
analysis.
2. To
each tail, add 600ml of tail digestion buffer (which has been supplemented
with proteinase K at a final concentration of 0.5 mg/ml) and place at
55¡C for 6-24 hours. OK to use epindorf repeater.
Mixing
during the digestion period will decrease the time required to digest
the tail sample and improve DNA quality.
Tail
digestion buffer (w/o proteinase K):
- 315
ml of autoclaved deionized water
- 25 ml
of 1 M Tris-HC1 (pH 8)
- 10 ml
of 5 M NaCl
- 10 ml
of 0.5 M EDTA (pH 8)
- 50 ml
10% SDS (or 10X SET)
- Prior
to use, 50 ml of proteinase K (10 mg/ml) is added for each ml of digest
buffer
3. Once
the tail material is digested, each sample is extracted once with 600
µl phenol:chloroform (75:25) (add with repeater, invert tubes multiple
times to mix or vortex). Centrifuge the samples at 13,000 RPM (max)
for at least 5 min. to separate the organic and aqueous phases,
the aqueous (top) phase is transferred to a new macrocentrifuge tube
(use a wide bore pipette tip). Do not try to transfer the entire aqueous
phase to a new tube. Do not transfer any phenol/chloroform.
4. Extract
the aqueous sample with chloroform (600 µl, mix well as noted above),
but this time instead of transferring the aqueous phase to a new tube,
remove the organic layer from under the DNA sample. It is okay to leave
small droplets of CHCl3.
5. Add
1 ml of 100% ethanol (-20¡C) and mix the tubes by inverting them several
times (Make sure tubes are very well mixed). The DNA should form
a visible mass. Pellet the DNA by spinning at maximum speed for two
minutes. Carefully pour off the ethanol and wash with 70% ethanol/0.1
M NaCl (-20¡C). Mix briefly, then centrifuge at max RPM for two minutes.
Carefully pour off the wash and inverted to dry for several minutes.
(Watch each pellet and do not let any DNA slide out of the tube!!!).
Depending upon the pellet size, the DNA should then be resuspended in
50-200 ml of TE. Allow the DNA to dissolve overnight at 4¡C.
This DNA
is now ready to be used in PCR or southern blot analysis.