Efficient RNA isolation is the most crucial step in gene expression studies. But in the case of Nendran banana, high levels of extractable phenols and polysaccharides present in the leaf tissues make RNA isolation extremely difficult. Inthe present work, five different methods-Trizol Reagent, modified CTAB method, Genei mRNA purification kit, Qiagen RN easy plant mini kit and Salzman method were tried for RNA isolation. The results indicated that Salzman method of RNA isolation yielded the best quality RNA in the case of Nendran banana. The extracted RNA showed values of 2.13 for A260and 2.25 for A260/A280/A230 absorbance ratios indicating high purity and also showed clear bands in agarose gel indicating high integrity of the isolate. The reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results also confirmed the high quality of the isolated RNA.
Nendran banana, RNA isolation, Salzman protocol, Reverse Transcription
