The integrity and assay performance of tissue mitochondrial DNA is considerably affected by choice of isolation method

Abstract

The integrity of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) isolated from solid tissues is critical for analyses such as long-range PCR. We show that a commonly-used DNA isolation procedure preferentially introduces strand breaks into the mtDNA extracted from the skeletal muscle of aged mice, while mtDNA from adult animals is less affected. We present a comparison of mtDNA isolation methods and identify one that avoids this biased loss of muscle mtDNA integrity. Our results highlight the importance of a careful choice of mtDNA isolation method and serve as a resource to researchers planning analysis of mtDNA isolated from solid tissues.