Nucleic acid methods

For protein methods, see Protein methods.

Nucleic acid methods are the techniques used to study nucleic acids: DNA and RNA.

Purification

• DNA extraction^[1]
• Phenol–chloroform extraction
• Minicolumn purification
• RNA extraction
• Boom method
• Synchronous coefficient of drag alteration (SCODA) DNA purification

Quantification

• Abundance in weight: spectroscopic nucleic acid quantitation
• Absolute abundance in number: real-time polymerase chain reaction (quantitative PCR)
• High-throughput relative abundance: DNA microarray
• High-throughput absolute abundance: serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE)
• Size: gel electrophoresis

Synthesis

• De novo: oligonucleotide synthesis
• Amplification: polymerase chain reaction (PCR), loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), transcription-mediated amplification (TMA)

Kinetics

• Multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance^[2][3]
• Dual-polarization interferometry^[4]
• Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D)^[5]

Gene function

• RNA interference^[6]

Other

• Bisulfite sequencing
• DNA sequencing
• Expression cloning
• Fluorescence in situ hybridization
• Lab-on-a-chip
• Comparison of nucleic acid simulation software
• Northern blot
• Nuclear run-on assay
• Radioactivity in the life sciences
• Southern blot
• Differential centrifugation (sucrose gradient)
• Toeprinting assay
• Several bioinformatics methods, as seen in list of RNA structure prediction software

See also

• CSH Protocols
• Current Protocols