Field preservation of marine invertebrate tissue for DNA analyses. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology

Successful preservation of tissue samples is a pre-requisite for long field studies in remote areas. However, there is little published information con-cerning field preservation of marine invertebrate tissues for DNA analyses. This omission is signifi-cant because marine biodiversity is centered in the Indo-Pacific, where immediate DNA analysis is of-ten impossible. Consequently, we used an assay based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to exam-ine the effect of five storage solutions and three temperature regimens on the degradation of DNA from four common classes of marine invertebrates (Anthozoa, Gastropoda, Polychaeta, and Scypho-zoa). Control samples were cryopreserved. Storage solution and the type of tissue preserved were the best predictors of preservation success. The length of time in storage and the storage temperature also affected the preservation of DNA. A field test dem-onstrates that a solution of dimethylsulfoxide and sodium chloride (DMSO-NaCl) preserves a wide range of tissues for DNA analyses and is very simple to use in remote field locations