DNA Strawberry Extraction Lab

DNA Strawberry Extraction Lab: 

Today in Bio we conducted a lab where we were instructed to extract DNA out of strawberries. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and didn't take much time to do. I'll take you through what we did to extract it. 

1) We got our strawberry and washed it off to minimize any environmental factors that could lead to an experimental error.

2)  Then, we made a DNA extraction buffer by mixing 5 mL of liquid dish washing detergent, .75 g of salt, and 45 mL of water. This detergent will aid in breaking down the fatty membranes so the nuclear membrane can later be released. The salt makes gives the DNA the ability to stick together more easily and separate from proteins.

3) What we did next was the fun step. We put the strawberry in a zip lock bag and we put 10 mL of the extraction buffer in it. Then we sealed it off to make sure there aren't any air bubbles. Then we got to smash the strawberries with our fingers. We smashed them for 1 minute.

 4) After that, the DNA nuclei should have been floating around as crushing the strawberry would break open the cells. When we finished smashing the strawberry, we put a funnel, that had gauze on it, into a tube. When the gauze was on the funnel, we filtered the liquid into the tube. Then we threw away the gauze and the left over strawberry. This filtering lets the strawberry DNA pass through without the extra Strawberry cell debris.

5) What we did after that was put ice-cold ethanol on top of the strawberry solution in the test tube with a pipette. The ice cold ethanol aids in the extraction and the safe-keeping of the DNA since the DNA will collect between the alcohol and strawberry extract layer. This happens because DNA is not soluble in alcohol. That is why it precipitates and remains at the layer between alcohol and extract.

6) This last step took us the longest. We had to use a loop to extract the DNA, and it took us 6 minutes and an extra loop to get the DNA from the test tube into our small container. We had to use the second loop to remove the DNA from the first loop. We might have put too much salt because it was hard to get it unstuck from the first loop. It all worked out in the end though cause our results were pretty damn cool!