In order to recover DNA from old slides containing cells (sperm and others), I'm trying to remove Canada balsam (among others).
Classic protocols are to (1) boiled briefly in xylene to facilitate coverslip removal, (2) just let some hours/days into xylene solution or (3) to put slides at -20°C and try with a spatula to remove coverslip.
But then, after coverslip removal, in theory, you have your biological material which is still in Canada balsam.
>How can we clean this biological material from Canada balsam as possible to ensure a correct DNA extraction (for futher analysis) ?
Thanks a lot
Hi Vincent,
I never have extracted DNA from material embedded in Canada balsam, however I have done this from tissue embedded in paraffin. As these specisms were also dehydrated with xylene I think you can follow a similar approach.
For this the specism was first treated with xylene (as you would do this for the Canada balsam) and then rehydrated in a series of ethanol washes (100%, 70% and 50% ethanol) followed by DNA extraction.
In this article you can find a protocol how to do this ( its on research gate):
Article DNA Extraction from Paraffin Embedded Material for Genetic a...
I would give this a try, however I would not start with my most valuable material.
I am not sure about the boiling of the material, I think I would just let the material for some time in xylene, so that you can remove the cover slips.
There are also some kit commercially available for extracting DNA from paraffin embedded tissues (but I think not for Canada balsam).
However, I have never tried one of those and I do not know if there are suitable for your specific problem (but maybe you can ask the company if you like to purchase something like this - I think e.g. Qiagen is selling such a kit)
I hope this helps
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