Availability of Nagarse for DNA analysis as a substitute for proteinase K.

The availability of Nagarse, a protease, as a substitute for proteinase K for digestion of leukocytic or bacterial DNAs was studied. The amount and purity of DNAs extracted from leukocytes and several bacterial strains with Nagarse were compared with those of DNAs treated with proteinase. Nagarse exhibited the same behavior as proteinase K in digesting leukocytes, and it could also be used for bacterial digestion for physical mapping of genomic DNA by biased sinusoid field gel electrophoresis. Nagarse was thus comparable to proteinase K for use in biochemical experiments. The principal advantage of Nagarse is that it is inexpensive, unlike proteinase K, and our findings indicated that Nagarse is very useful as a substitute for proteinase K for the DNA study. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.