Modified cetyltrimethylammonium bromide method improves robustness and versatility: the benchmark for plant RNA extraction.

A wide range of plant RNA extraction methods are available; however, many of these are limited in their application for a diverse range of plant species. With special emphasis on robustness and versatility, we have improved the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method and isolated high-quality RNA from 16 different plant species. The major modifications made to the protocol described here were a reduction of sample treatment steps and an increase in beta-mercaptoethanol concentration (to 3%) resulting in a robust, rapid and reproducible plant RNA extraction protocol that can be used for a broad range of plant species and tissue types.