Phenol-based Extraction of RNA from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

RNA extraction is a basic procedure in molecular biology and a wide variety of commercial kits are available. Some of these kits have been successfully used in Chlamydomonas. However, in some cases RNA quality and quantity may be dramatically reduced depending on the strains and/or the conditions where cells were grown or treated. Phenol-based protocols are the most robust methods to obtain both high quantity and quality RNA from any strain of this alga grown in any condition. Here, we describe an easy and cheap protocol using phenol but avoiding the acute toxicity of guanidine isothiocyanate present in the commercial phenol-based mixtures