RNA isolation from plant tissues:: a practical experience for biological undergraduates

Practical RNA experiments on RNA technology are rarely performed in intermediate and advanced biochemistry courses mainly due to the fact that ribonucleases are very active; widespread and stable. We describe here an easy practical experiment that, although it is not truly representative of RNA research, overcomes methodological difficulties and helps to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical findings. This experiment has been performed for two years in a Molecular Biology course using plants as the RNA source since they contain the three types of rRNA pairs that a cell can contain. By solving the Study Questions, the students understand the importance of the different types of RNA in the cell, assess the purity, yield and concentrations of their samples, and identify the origin of each band observed in agarose gel electrophoresis. (C) 1999 IUBMB. Published by Elsevier science Ltd. All rights reserved.