Highly efficient DNA extraction and purification from olive oil on a washable and reusable miniaturized device

Sample preparation from complex matrixes with minute DNA content could highly benefit from the miniaturization of solid phase extraction (SPE) based devices due to an increased surface area-to-volume ratio. However, the adaptation of "bench-top" based protocols for DNA purification to miniaturized devices is not as straightforward as it might seem, and several issues need to be considered. A careful evaluation of DNA extraction and purification protocols needs to be performed, taking into account the complexity of such samples, and in order to facilitate the integration with the subsequent step, normally DNA amplification. In this work a washable and reusable miniaturized device for DNA purification based on microscale solid phase extraction (μSPE), containing a commercial disposable silica membrane as the solid phase for DNA capture, was developed. The DNA purification protocol was firstly optimized by testing a set of different conditions, including buffer composition in all three steps of analysis and incubation during the elution step, with the objective of increasing the DNA yield and facilitating the integration in a miniaturized setting. This protocol was then tested with olive oil samples, including a pretreatment step also developed and optimized in this work. DNA analysis of olive oil samples is of high interest for the detection of fraudulent adulteration with oil from other seeds and for cultivar identification. The results were compared with the commercial NucleoSpin^® Food kit regarding efficiency and purity of the DNA extract, by estimating the DNA yield and evaluating the absorbance ratios A260/280 and A260/230. The miniaturized DNA purification device showed better performance than the commercial kit tested, making this method a very promising sample preparation approach for olive oil and other samples with minute DNA content.