A modified CTAB method for high-molecular-weight DNA preparation from deep-sea holothurians

With the features as global distribution and all depths dwelling, holothurians function an ideal model for the study of deep-sea adaptation. Acquisition of high-molecular-weight DNA is the basic requirement for molecular biology analyses. However, extraction of high-molecular-weight DNA from deep-sea holothurians is difficult by degradation and contamination. Here, we presented a modified CTAB (lysis buffer with cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide) method and compared its extraction efficiency for deep-sea holothurians with other five common methods, i.e. the Tiangen Biotech kit, Qiagen kit, Omega Bio-tek kit, Sangon Biotech kit, and SDS (lysis buffer with sodium dodecyl sulfate). Based on the results of yield, integrity, and purity, we found that the modified CTAB method is more suitable to extract high-quality DNA for deep-sea holothurians, with a large amount of yield, minimized degradation, and higher purity. This study provides a high-quality DNA of deep-sea holothurians for genome sequencing and further studies.