The presence of melanin in genomic DNA isolated from pigmented cell lines interferes with successful polymerase chain reaction: a solution.

We have found that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of genetic material is unsuccessful when using template genomic DNA derived from certain normal melanocyte and melanoma cell lines. We demonstrated that this phenomenon only occurs with pigmented cell lines and appears to be due to the association of genomic DNA with remnants of the pigment melanin. We therefore describe a simple and rapid technique that rids genomic DNA samples of melanin, resulting in a genomic DNA template that allows successful PCR.