Ethanol precipitation is a widely used laboratory technique for concentrating and purifying nucleic acids, and sometimes proteins, from solution. The method works by adding a salt and a volume of cold ethanol to an aqueous sample, which reduces the solubility of the target molecules so that they aggregate and can be…
Ethanol precipitation is a widely used laboratory technique for concentrating and purifying nucleic acids, and sometimes proteins, from solution. The method works by adding a salt and a volume of cold ethanol to an aqueous sample, which reduces the solubility of the target molecules so that they aggregate and can be collected as a pellet by centrifugation. The added salt neutralizes the charges along the molecule, allowing the chains to come out of solution, while the ethanol displaces the water that would otherwise keep them dissolved. After the pellet is separated, it can be washed and redissolved in a clean buffer. Because it is simple, inexpensive, and effective, ethanol precipitation is a routine step in molecular biology and biochemistry for recovering DNA and RNA, removing contaminants, and changing the buffer a sample is dissolved in. As a separation and purification method grounded in the chemistry of solubility and solvent behaviour, it falls within the scope of New Developments in Chemistry. This page gathers peer-reviewed, open-access research relevant to ethanol precipitation and the chemical principles of separating and purifying biomolecules.
1 peer-reviewed article, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.