Carboxyl-coated magnetic nanoparticles for mRNA isolation and extraction of supercoiled plasmid DNA

Carboxyl-coated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were used to demonstrate dual functionality: isolation of messenger RNA (mRNA) from mammalian cells and extraction of the supercoiled (sc) form of plasmid DNA (pDNA) from agarose gel. These MNPs were attached with 5'-NH2-tagged oligo-(dT)(25) primer and were used to isolate mRNA from breast cancer cells. The isolated mRNA was used for amplification of beta-actin to confirm the compatibility. These MNPs were also used to extract the sc form of pDNA from agarose gel. The compatibility of the pDNA was demonstrated by restriction digestion. Both of these methodologies are simple, inexpensive (compared with existing kits), and efficient. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.