Evaluation of four different DNA extraction methods from dwarf honeybee Apis florea (Hymenoptera: Apidae) for genetic experiments

DNA extraction is the first step of genetic experiments. In this regard, quality and quantity of extracted DNA plays an important role in molecular studies. This experiment was conducted in order to achieve a novel method that helps us to extract DNA from Apis florea F (one of two important Iranian honeybee). This species is regarded as an important honeybee due to its world-wide distribution and direct role in pollination of field crops, orchards and forests. Samples were collected randomly from the hives of dwarf honeybee in Khuzestan province. In the current research, DNA was extracted from the thorax tissues of worker bees. Totally, four DNA extraction methods were evaluated including the optimal salting out, phenol-chloroform, CTAB and CTAB+SDS. To evaluate the quality of extracted DNA, spectrophotometry, electrophoresis and agarose gel methods were applied to compare quantity and quality of DNA extraction. Quantity and quality of extracted DNA was evaluated by spectrophotometry based on the absorption ratio 260/280 and electrophoresis on agarose gel. Based on the absorption ratio, for the methods of salting out, phenol-chloroform, CTAB and CTAB + SDS were 1.15 ± 0.01, 1.37 ± 0.01, 1.72 ± 0.02 and 1.82 ± 0.01, respectively. Duncan multiple range test revealed that CTAB+SDS was significantly different from other methods for evaluation of DNA extraction. Based on the results, the quality of DNA visible bands on the agarose gel can be considered as the option to evaluate the quality of DNA. On the other hand, twice washing in the CTAB + SDS method reduced protein contamination significantly. Furthermore, it could be mentioned that all the DNA extraction methods used in this study seems to be suitable in polymerase chain reaction test, but CTAB+SDS resulted in higher DNA quality and quantity. We referred to this thorax tissue as “thoracic muscle mass”, which could be as candidate tissue to obtain larger quantities of DNA.