DNA Extraction Lab

DNA makes up people, plants, and animals. It controls our eye color, hair color, height, and other things that build our physical and genetic make-up. In class, we extracted DNA from plant cells. We used strawberries, but DNA can be extracted from any type of plant or animal cell. Infact, you can extract DNA from any type of cell. We added salt, detergent, alchohol and enzymes to the strawberry ceels and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. After, we could see that the DNA had risen to the top of the test tube. DNA looks very different than what I expected it to look like. Many mistakes could have occured during the experiment. They time we waited before looking at the DNA may have been too short of too long. We might have put too much or too little of one of the ingredients, or we may have accidently mixed the solution after it was in the test tube. Because we only tried to extract the DNA once, our results can not be proven correct, however, here are my observations.

• The DNA was feathery-looking.
• The DNA looked white.
• The DNA was floating.
• The DNA was larger than regular DNA should be, so we were able to see it.

These are some simple observations that may not be the result of a correct final product. Even so, all provedures were followed. We would have to do this experiment everal times before we could call our results accurate. Still, we did a fairly good job.