Comparative study of different methods for the extraction of DNA from fish species commercially available in South Africa

This study describes the comparison of five DNA extraction methods (urea-SDS-proteinase K; phenol-chloroform; salt extraction; SureFood® PREP Allergen kit and Wizard® Genomic DNA Purification kit) in terms of their ability to extract high yields of pure, readily amplifiable DNA from the muscle tissue of 29 fish species available in South Africa. Although variations in the yield and purity of extracted DNA were observed between methods, all five methods produced DNA suitable for PCR amplification. Overall, the SureFood® PREP method was of the simplest and least hazardous to perform, extracting significantly (P < 0.05) higher DNA yields than all other methods evaluated.