Comparative study of the influence of EDTA and sodium heparin on long term storage of cattle DNA.

Blood collection in heparin tubes for cytogenetic, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) tubes for molecular genetics applications respectively, are routine practices everywhere. If blood samples are required for cytogenetics as well as DNA work, two samples from each animal are usually collected, which leads to wastage of time and money. The present study tried to explore the possibilities of collecting a single blood sample in a heparinised tube for use in both applications. Two blood samples were collected from the same animals; one in a heparin tube and the other in an EDTA tube. DNA was extracted and stored at the same temperature and for the same durations. Comparative studies revealed that the DNA samples extracted from blood using these two different coagulants give more or less the same quality of results especially for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based applications in cattle. The purpose of the present study was to establish the possibility of using heparin blood for chromosomal studies as well as for molecular biology. Such a practice will obviously save time and money in collecting samples in duplicate.