A Novel Method for Efficient and Specific Nucleic Acid Isolation

We propose to develop a novel reagent for nucleic acid isolation. If successfully developed, this reagent will be appropriate for use in nucleic acids isolation from a variety of sample types, including environmental samples. The most advantageous characteristic of this reagent is its specific binding to nucleic acids as opposed to adsorption to solid phase, which is currently used for nucleic acid isolation. Therefore, this novel reagent is an ¿affinity¿ matrix. We expect that this reagent be appropriate for rapid nucleic acid isolation even from highly contaminated and diluted samples. In Phase I study we plan to demonstrate the feasibility of preparing this novel reagent, estimate its DNA binding capacity and evaluate its performance in terminally diluted samples. Our ultimate goal is to develop easy-to-follow protocols for both manual and automated nucleic acid isolation from a diverse sample types under a diverse conditions. This reagent also has the potential to be used for rapid and sensitive detection for microorganisms for certain samples.