Biochemistry by the hands of our students

On Friday, September 29, our students had practical work in biochemistry. They extracted DNA from bananas, tomatoes and plums. Everyone knows that DNA is located in the nucleus of the cell. But did you know that in order to isolate DNA from nuclei, you do not need special equipment, and even a child can easily do it at home?
You ask: How?

First, our students finely crushed the fruit in sealed bags. Rebeka worked with plums, Stephany with tomatoes, and Alexandra with bananas. Then they took 200 ml of water, added 1 teaspoon of table salt and 20 ml of sopanate to it. Students added the prepared solution to crushed fruits and mixed thoroughly without foaming. (Why do you think salt and detergent are needed?)

The girls then carefully filtered the solutions, removing the solid parts (fruit residues). Strongly cooled ethyl alcohol was added to the resulting liquid in the volume of the filtered liquid (What role do you think alcohol plays here?) and….. We saw the stratification of the solution. The top layer was jelly-like and viscous.

It was DNA! By carefully rotating the glass rod in the solution, the students wound the DNA around the rod. Of course, it was not pure DNA. (Why do you think?) But nevertheless, the girls received a positive result: DNA was isolated from the cells.

Thus, by achieving small successes in the school laboratory, our students improve their research skills.

P.S. Dear students, if you have an interest in biochemistry, you can complete this project (with modifications) or another project in our laboratories and present it at the Fall Open House. Our Sclabs are always available to you.