Miniprep DNA isolation from unicellular and filamentous cyanobacteria

A rapid miniprep method for isolation of DNA from 12 strains of cyanobacter ia belonging to groups I, III, IV and V is described. The protocol is a mod ification of the methods of Boyle and Lew [Boyle, J.S., Lew, A.M., 1995. An inexpensive alternative to glassmilk for DNA purification. Trends Genet. 1 1, 8] and the cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) extraction method of S ahgai-Maroof et al. [Sahgai-Maroof, M.A., Soliman, K.M., Jorgensen, R.A., A llard, R.W., 1984. Ribosomal DNA spacer-length polymorphisms in barley: Men delian inheritance, chromosomal location and population dynamics. Proc. Nat I. Acad. Sci. USA 81, 8014-8018]. The new method is especially useful for o btaining cyanobacterial DNA from unicellular, filamentous and filamentous b ranched species. The method does not require phenol extraction and the prod uct can be used directly for PCR amplification and restriction digestion. ( C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.