Background: The amplification power of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique has had great impact in molecular analysis, and DNA extraction is a common requirement in retrospective studies utilizing PCR as a tool. Conventional methods used in deparaffinization, harvesting and purification of DNA from paraffin-embedded tissue are time consuming and cause a significant loss in the yield of DNA.
Methods: We utilized heating-melting-cooling removal of paraffin, digestion of the sample with proteinase K and purification of the extracted DNA by a microconcentrator. The products, after PCR amplification of the p53 gene exon 8, were used to make a comparison between our method and the conventional xylene-phenol-choloform method.
Results: The amplified products from our method were superior to that of the conventional method.
Conclusion: The method we propose has a better recovery of DNA and is more time efficient.