[PRECELLYS] RNA extraction from mycotoxigenic filamentous fungi

Filamentous fungi cell wall and endogenous RNase activity often hindered the study of the molecular mechanisms behind secondary metabolites. Toxigenic secondary metabolites affect human health and represent a risk in the food chain system. The conditions in which mycotoxins are produced are still not completely understood especially the molecular mechanism that trigger their production. The extraction of high quality RNA in good amounts was therefore critical to further evaluate the conditions in which mycotoxigenic gene clusters are activated. Aspergillus flavus NRRL 3357 was used to evaluate the RNA extraction protocol. A manual grinding method using mortar and pestle was compared to different bead beating homogenizers using different beads [1].

[1] G.M. Leite, N. Magan, A. Medina. 2012.Comparison of different bead-beating RNAextraction strategies: an optimized method for filamentous fungi. Journal ofMicrobiological Methods, 88, 413-418.