The iGEM Team of University of Southern Denmark 2012 igem.sdu.2012@gmail.com

Laboratory Notebook

Here you will find the log book for the procedures carried out in the laboratory, starting from week 27.

1st week	2nd week	3rd week	4th week
5th week	6th week	7th week	8th week
9th week	10th week	11th week	12th week

02-07-2012 to 08-07-2012

Acquisition of plant material

Plant material from the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) were secured from a nearby plant nursery(Langeskov Planteskole).

Isolation af mRNA

The procedure used to isolate mRNA from Helianthus tuberosus, was a modified version of the Qiagen RNeasy protocol for plant mRNA isolation. See mRNA isolation protocol for details
Plant material form Helianthus tuberosus was cut into pieces and stored in liquid nitrogen(flash-freeze at -196 °C)to halt all RNase activity. RLT buffer is mixed at this point, for later use.
After 20 minutes of freezing time the plant material was grinded into fine dust and dissolved in RTL buffer. The solution was treated with ultrasound to homogenize it, and to further disrupt the cell wall.
After centrifugation, Ethanol was added to the solution and the sample was transfered to a spin-column from the Qiagen RNeasy mini kit. The kit i usually used for RNA isolation from animal cells was used (see protocol for details). The now isolated mRNA solutions were measured on a Nanodrop to ascertain their concentrations:

Control: 627 ng/uL
Sonic: 747 ng/uL