Obtaining High Quality DNA from Diverse Clinical Samples.

Nucleic acids can be obtained in numerous ways from clinical specimens; however, the quality of the nucleic acid is only as good as the sampling and isolation protocol. While nucleic acids may be extracted they may not be representative of the original source. Large areas of tissue and explanted hardware must be successfully surveyed to reflect the overall clinical picture. Once good sampling technique has been established, successful bacterial nucleic acid isolation is essential. Clinical samples may be difficult to process because of the presence of scar tissue, bone, implants, and bacterial biofilms. The following protocols provide details on sampling techniques and DNA isolation from a variety of clinical samples which can then be used in downstream molecular applications including PCR-MS-ESI-TOF technology.