A New General Method for Separation of Nucleic Acids

Abstract

Abstract Agarose gel chromatography at 2.5 M NaCl was applied to separation of nucleic acid mixtures extracted from bacteria, plants and vertebrates. In all cases 1t was possible to obtain, in a single chromatographic run, a DNA fraction containing less than 1 wt. % of alkali-labile polynucleotides, a low-molecular weight RNA fraction consisting mainly of tRNA, and a high-molecular weight RNA fraction comprising polyribonucleotides with more than approximately 100 nucleotidyl residues per chain.