High Throughput DNA Extraction from Staple Crops Utilizing the Bead Ruptor™ 96 Bead Mill Homogenizer and chemagic™ 360 Nucleic Acid Extractor

Plants are a crucial part of our diet and the entire ecosystem we inhabit. In fact, plants are such a vital aspect of our planet that they account for over a quarter of new species discovered yearly (1). With this rapid level of discovery, researchers are in constant need
to understand the genetic makeup and diversity of plant species. Lysing plant material to expose the genetic material contained within samples during preparation, however, can be quite difficult due to a variety of factors with the thick polysaccharide cell wall being among the most obstructive.

As plants require greater amounts of genetic data to fuel the needs of next generation data analysis, higher sample volumes will be required to meet the demands of the rigorous research requirements ahead. Modern techniques such as next generation sequencing or long read sequencing are not only allowing for a deeper analysis of a sample’s genetic material; but also allow for an exponentially higher number of samples to be examined at once. As such, high throughput workflows are becoming a necessity in today’s research laboratories. In this work, we demonstrate a high throughput plant DNA workflow utilizing the Bead Ruptor™ 96 bead mill homogenizer and chemagic™ 360 automated nucleic acid extractor for end-to-end sample preparation and DNA isolation from a variety of staple crops yielding high quality DNA suitable for next generation sequencing.