rep-pcr is a fingerprinting method, and in this type of PCR we must use whole of DNA (Not broken out), unfortunately boiling and phenol chloroform did not work.
rep-PCR uses PCR amplification. Why does you DNA need to be whole for this? As long as you start with plenty of bacteria and the DNA isn't sheared into tiny fragments surely it should still work?
PCR will amplify the DNA fragment you are interested in. I agree with Hannah, if you recover plenty of it you shouldn´t have any trouble, specially if you are doing a rep-pcr which is based on the use of DNA primers corresponding to repetitive elements.
You should focus on finding the problem with your DNA extraction protocol. There are many of causes such us:
- Problems with your reagents (are you using a comercial kit?): some times you need fresh solutions. For example SDS solution (lysis buffer) is recommended to use fresh. Some times if the phenol is not stored appropriately it can be oxidized and doesn´t work well. Also, If you are preparing the phenol chloroform solution I would recommend not to mix them first (before using it), from my personal experience I got better results by first adding phenol, then chloroform and then mixing very well each eppendorf tube (this depends on your protocol...)
- Problems with your bacteria: maybe they produce some kind of exopolisaccharide which does not permit it to resuspend well the cells, so the solutions you´r adding won´t work well. This is recognized by the formation of a surface film over the liquid media. To avoid it you would need to add a surfactant to the media or agitate the culture.
- Problems recovering DNA contaminated with proteins
- DNA too degraded
An others...
As you can see there might be many causes so you have to evaluate which could be the one so you can solve it.
Also, How do you now you DNA is too sheared? did you run a electrophoresis gel? what results did you get? did you see any clear band or a smear? Did you quantify it with a spectrophotometer?( - I recommend nano-drop).
Mrs tanner I don't use kit but my friend used it and it worked. I used plenty of bacteria an i change my protocol many time but always the DNA extraction had Smear . and rep-pcr (base on repetitive element) needs doing with Not broken DNA.
Mr borrero, yes i run it and it has smear . I change my protocol three time. when I do rep_pcr and run it, there are few band ( for example 3 or 4) but my friend do rep_pcr with DNA that extracted by kit and he found over than 15 band !! and thank your notes
Hi Noeman. Is your friend with the kit doing the same strains? Is it possible that your strains just have fewer rep elements? If your friend has success with a kit why don't you just go with that?