The quality of the DNA isolated from Lavandula angustifolia leaves

Lavender (genus Lavandula L., family Lamiaceae Lindl.) is a commercially valuable crop grown all over the world due to the great value of its essential oil, which is widely used in medicine and cosmetology. To identify the genetic relationships between various lavender cultivars, molecular and genetic mechanisms that encode their economically valuable characteristics and plant genotype, it is necessary to work out methods of molecular genetic analysis for these particular objects. The aim of the presented study was to assess the quantity and quality of DNA isolated from L. angustifolia by different ways. Lavender plants of the cultivar 'Belyanka' in vitro and ex situ were investigated. For estimation of essential oils inclusion accumulation in leaf tissues, the leaf sections were made, stained with Sudan III and investigated under light microscope. To isolate DNA from intact young leaves four different commercial kits such as DiamondDNA™, PureLink^® Plant Total DNA Purification Kit, GeneJET Plant Genomic DNA Purification Kit and MagNA Pure Compact Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit I were used. Our data confirmed that the quality of the DNA isolated from the cultivar 'Belyanka' leaves was dependent from plant material and presence of essential oil inclusions and other metabolites in tissues. The best results were demonstrated with kits utilizing silica-based membrane technology (PureLink and GeneJET). RAPD-PCR showed that all kits can be used for this analysis. The following sequencing needs more accurate plant material type selection and accounting all scores (not only spectrophotometric data) for clear results.