I've used a system where tissue, sand and liquid N2 are added to a conical
tube. A glass rod is inserted and the tube is placed on a vortexer. For
hundreds of samples it beats a mortar and pestle but I don't think it will
solve your problem.
I wasted some money on a thing called a bead beater. Basically an expensive
paint shaker for 2 ml tubes. We found that leaving the tube half empty and
using zirconium beads instead of glass helped a lot. Still, we don't use
the thing.
Phil
At 08:11 AM 11/25/98 -0600, you wrote:
>We need to isolate DNA (for PCR) from many thousands of maize plants.
>We've found some very quick/easy extraction protocols that work on fresh
>tissues. However, the big stumbling block is tissue grinding. We would
>like to avoid the necessity of freeze-drying the tissue prior to
>extraction, but so far we haven't had good luck grinding fresh tissue in a
>paint shaker.
>>Has anyone worked out a reliable, easy protocol from fresh tissue?
>>Pat
>>>>Patrick S. Schnable
>Professor of Plant Genetics
>G405 Agronomy Hall
>Iowa State University
>Ames, IA 50011 USA
>schnable at iastate.edu>515-294-0975 (office)
>515-294-2299 (fax)
>http://www.public.iastate.edu/~schnable/>
