2022 Volume 71 Issue 3 Pages 201-206
Nucleic acid extracted from environmental samples is an important analyte in instrumental analysis. With respect to the phenomenon in which sodium tungstate promotes the methane production in anaerobic digestion, the analyses of microbial community using RNA were conducted; however, we noticed that only RNA concentration measured by absorbance measurement (NanoDrop) was remarkably high. Therefore, in this study, DNA and RNA were extracted from the anaerobic digestion sludge samples with sodium tungstate, sodium selenite, or sodium molybdate, and these nucleic acids were quantified and compared by absorbance measurement, fluorescence measurement (Qubit), and gel electrophoresis. Interestingly, it was found that only the RNA concentration of the sample containing sodium tungstate measured by NanoDrop was 3 times higher than that by Qubit analysis. In addition, there was no difference between the RNA concentration measured by Qubit and gel electrophoresis. Regarding DNA concentration and the other compounds, there were no differences. Hence, these results indicate that the Qubit system is useful for the quantification of the RNA concentration in the environmental samples.
