Digging out treasure from museum specimen: A comparison of extraction methods and PCR polymerase enzymes for DNA from old taxidermy samples.

Museums are treasure-houses of samples from rare and threatened species. These samples are used in various studies such as phylogenetic and molecular ecology studies. They are also used to obtain information required for wildlife forensic cases. In the present study, the use of various commercially available kits and the traditional phenol/chloroform DNA extraction protocol were compared. They were compared in terms of the purity and yield of DNA and success of PCR amplification. Two mitochondrial genes, 12s rRNA and cytochrome b, from three mammal species (Ratufa macroura, Petaurista petaurista albiventer, Felis chaus) were used. No statistical significant differences were found between the extraction methods. DNA purity rather than yield was found to be strongly correlated with PCR success. It is concluded that research work on fragmented DNA from old taxidermic samples should aim at extracting pure DNA with good DNA yield and at amplifying short target regions (400–500 bp) to obtain the maximal amplification rate.