Abstract

High levels of secondary metabolites in most plants have been a major drawback in the extraction of high-quality/quantity DNA. However, several DNA extraction kits have been developed to bridge this gap, but the non-universality of the kits is still a major challenge. Hence, this study was aimed at evaluating two different DNA extraction kits (Zymo Research (ZR) plant Miniprep kit and Qiagen DNeasy plant mini kit) to ascertain their performance on six accessions of Macrotyloma geocarpa seeds. They were also compared in terms of DNA Quality, DNA Quantity as well as time spent. DNA was extracted using the two protocols and analyzed with the aid of a Nanodrop spectrophotometer and agarose gel electrophoresis. Statistically, the ZR kit had the best DNA yield and purity. Electrophoresis on a 1% agarose gel showed that DNA extracted using the ZR kit produced DNA bands that were very visible compared to the Qiagen DNeasy kit which showed faint bands. The faint bands observed in samples extracted with Qiagen DNeasy kit could be attributed to the low DNA yield/concentration which was confirmed in the quantification results. The PCR amplification results for the two protocols used in this study showed that all protocols were able to recover amplifiable DNA. In terms of time effectiveness, the ZR kit consumed less time than the Qiagen DNeasy kit. With respect to extraction of high quality and quantity DNA from seeds of M. geocarpa, Zymo Research (ZR) plant Miniprep kit performed better than Qiagen DNeasy plant mini kit.