Tissue samples were collected from field specimens were intended to be used for further studies on DNA, RNA, and protein level. What would be the optimum method to preserve the three DNA, RNA, and protein simultaneously?
For long time preservation you can use Vacuum Dry the plant samples, and place them in refrigerator @ 4C. But then extraction of RNA will be hard and tricky.
The Simple way to store them in -80C then you can use them for Trizol Reagent for RNA, DNA or Protein extraction.
Thanks Muhammad they are animal tissues. I have found a solution that is called All protect tissue reagent from Qiagen that is claimed to protect the three molecules till extraction. But I have no experience with it. Is there anybody who tried it?
These reagents preserve tissues for a short time at the room temperature (about a week). you cant protect your tissues with this solution for a long time (specially RNA).
You can keep your tissues in liquid nitrogen for long term storage. However, i kept monkey liver tissues in formalin and was still able to obtain RNA from it for virus detection. You can also store your sample in glycerol and keep in -80Celsius. You may prepare RNA later locally if you do not have much money, it will surely protect your RNA. This may be another way out.
We store skin biopsies in RNA later buffer- so far the quality and integrity of total RNA extracts have been high.
For long time preservation you can use 70% Ethenol for plant samples, and place them in deep Freezer @ -50.
It sounds like flexibility for different downstream applications is important for you which some of the suggestions above might not address. We have used allprotect for tissue samples when dealing with precious samples that we may want to look at both gene and protein expression in later - as this reagent can preserve protein, RNA and DNA integrity. Sounds like it would be helpful to you in handling field samples under circumstances when freezing or even refrigeration may not be a viable option. Once you get to the lab, your samples can be archived longer in this reagent in the freezer. In our hands, RNA quality may not have been perfect but was sufficient for our downstream applications, while allowing us to run Westerns too. The key is to make sure that your samples are small enough to allow rapid penetration of the reagent. Unfortunately, it is fairly expensive but with small samples you don't need huge amounts, Good luck!
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