All that is gold does not glitter? Age, taxonomy, and ancient plant DNA quality

Abstract

More than 600 herbarium samples from four distantly related groups of flowering plants were used for DNA extraction and subsequent measurements of DNA purity and concentration. We did not find any significant relation between DNA purity and the age of the sample. However, DNA yields were different between plant groups studied. We believe that there there should be no reservations about “old” samples if the goal is to extract more DNA of better purity. We argue that the older herbarium samples are the mine for the future DNA studies, and have the value not less than the “fresh” specimens.

Keywords

• DNA extraction
• Herbarium samples
• Plantageae
• Picraminaceae
• Aronia
• Buxineae