Re: [DIYbio] Re: Hacking Stink Bugs

Proteinase K is a protease, an enzyme that breaks apart amino acid chains similar to a restriction enzyme breaking DNA. Not only will it break down proteins that will generally just clog up the reaction, it wil break down nuclease enzyme that can quickly degrade your DNA. Basic solutions will also aid protein denaturation, and DNA will survive (but not RNA). Phenol/Chloroform washes are awesome for getting clean nucleic acids, but they're a little volatile and toxic, but I don't think much more than common automotive solvents and chemicals. Just wear gloves and long sleeve lab coat, and do the extraction in a fume hood. You probably don't DNA this clean, but it won't hurt if you choose to go that route. The phenol really helps to denature proteins and the chloroform is non-ionic so it doesn't mix much with water despite being polar. Adding some isoamyl alcohol prevents phosgene evolution, wiki mentions using ethanol or amylene, but ethanol is much more water-soluble than isoamyl alcohol.