Question

Describe an experiment that would test my claim that the bands and smeared nucleic acids in the second lane are actually DNA and RNA, respectively. Big hints: Remember Avery, McCarty and MacLeod, or an early step in your DNA extraction protocol that we skipped while lysing and incubating the crawdad claw extracts.

Answer 1

The most appropriate answer to this problem is due to the contamination of certain agents which can cause a significant alteration in the result, In case DNA, there are certain enzymes (protein substances) present in the system that are known as DNAses, similarly in RNA, these agents are known as RNAse. DNAse and RNAse are having potential to degrade the nucleic acid, which ultimately result in a smear rather than proper firmed bands on the gel. To rule out this problem, it is recommended that to use inhibitor of these enzymes during the isolation procedures of nucleic acids. Proteinase k is also used for protein contamination in the samples.

DNAse is having capacity to cleave DNA molecules, result a smear in the gel

RNAse are capable to degrade RNA samples, smearing on the gel

The solution is use of inhibitory agent during the extraction of nucleic acids.