Assuming our yeast cultures had grown to near saturation we

Assuming our yeast cultures had grown to near saturation we would expect 5 x 10E7 cells/ml, and we began with a 10 ml culture. In total therefore we would have purified nucleic acid from 5 x 10E8 yeast cells. How much total nucleic acid could we have expected to recover if we had a 100% percent yield (which by the way never happens)? What percent of this hypothetical yield did you recover?

Solution

Dehydrated cells and tissues are more easily disrupted in ethanol than hydrated ones, and the homogenates provided high yields of DNA and RNA with good structural integrity suitable for analyses using common molecular scientific methods. The produce of DNA extracted from yeast reached ~1%, and the produce of total nucleic acids was ~10% of dried weight.