AN EASY METHOD FOR PRESERVING NUCLEIC-ACIDS IN-FIELD SAMPLES FOR LATER MOLECULAR AND GENETIC-STUDIES WITHOUT REFRIGERATING

The nucleic acids in field collected samples of viruses, bacteria, yea sts, invertebrates and vertebrates were well preserved in buffered sol ution of 4M guanidium-thiocyanate. This method is particularly suitabl e for population, epidemiological and parasitological molecular studie s. The DNA and RNA from samples kept up to 41 days without refrigerati on in this way were suitable for PCR and reverse transcription PCR.