Novel precursor-derived Si–C–N ceramic material for purification application

Metagenomic DNA (gDNA) is an important research topic because uncultivated microorganisms represent an interesting reservoir of genes with potential biotechnological applications. Here we describe a novel Si–C–N chromatography approach of gDNA extraction from environmental samples. Amorphous Si–C–N ceramic was obtained by the pyrolysis of a polymer precursor (polycarbosilazane) at 1350 °C in Ar. The purified gDNA fragments were at least 12 kilo base pairs in size and were sufficiently free of contaminants, thus were applicable to both restriction enzyme digestion using five different enzymes and polymerase chain reaction amplification for detecting phylogenetic groups of native microorganisms in environmental samples. This Si–C–N material produces pure gDNA that can be utilized in some of the most common molecular biological procedures applied in the purification step.