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Abstract BackgroundModern plant breeding strategies rely on the intensive use of advanced genomic tools to expedite the development of improved crop varieties. Genomic DNA extraction from crop seeds eliminates the need to grow plants in contrast to fresh leaf tissue; however, it can still be a bottleneck due to the presence of stored compounds and the complexity of the matrix. The interaction of environmentally benign choline-based ionic liquids (ILs) with DNA offers an innovative approach to enhance the quality of extracted DNA from seeds. While prior IL-based plant DNA extraction workflows have primarily supported polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and quantitative PCR-based applications, their suitability for high-throughput sequencing (HTS) remained largely unexplored. This study explores the efficacy of IL-assisted method for genomic DNA extraction from soybean (Glycine max) seeds, addressing the limited application of ILs in HTS. ResultsThe optimized DNA extraction method, utilizing 25% (w/v) choline formate, enabled the recovery of high-purity DNA with abundant fragment sizes > 20 kb, suitable for downstream applications including PCR, whole genome amplification (WGA), simple sequence repeat (SSR) amplification, and high-throughput Illumina sequencing. The IL-method was benchmarked against a silica-binding method using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as lysis agents using a commercial plant DNA extraction kit in terms of DNA yield, purity, abundant DNA fragment size distribution, and integrity. In addition, DNA isolated from this method demonstrated successful PCR amplification of markers from both the nuclear and plastid genomes and yielded > 99% whole genome coverage with Illumina (PE150) sequencing reads. ConclusionsThis is the first known instance of a whole genome sequence generated from DNA extracted with ILs. These findings mark a significant milestone in establishing ILs as promising alternatives to conventional methods for seed DNA extraction, with potential utility in third generation (long-read) sequencing experiments. 

Abstract BackgroundThere is a growing demand for fast and reliable plant biomolecular analyses. DNA extraction is the major bottleneck in plant nucleic acid-based applications especially due to the complexity of tissues in different plant species. Conventional methods for plant cell lysis and DNA extraction typically require extensive sample preparation processes and large quantities of sample and chemicals, elevated temperatures, and multiple sample transfer steps which pose challenges for high throughput applications. ResultsIn a prior investigation, an ionic liquid (IL)-based modified vortex-assisted matrix solid phase dispersion approach was developed using the model plant,Arabidopsis thaliana(L.) Heynh. Building upon this foundational study, the present study established a simple, rapid and efficient protocol for DNA extraction from milligram fragments of plant tissue representing a diverse range of taxa from the plant Tree of Life including 13 dicots and 4 monocots. Notably, the approach was successful in extracting DNA from a century old herbarium sample. The isolated DNA was of sufficient quality and quantity for sensitive molecular analyses such as qPCR. Two plant DNA barcoding markers, the plastidrbcLand nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) regions were selected for DNA amplification and Sanger sequencing was conducted on PCR products of a representative dicot and monocot species. Successful qPCR amplification of the extracted DNA up to 3 weeks demonstrated that the DNA extracted using this approach remains stable at room temperature for an extended time period prior to downstream analysis. ConclusionsThe method presented here is a rapid and simple approach enabling cell lysis and DNA extraction from 1.5 mg of plant tissue across a broad range of plant taxa. Additional purification prior to DNA amplification is not required due to the compatibility of the extraction solvents with qPCR. The method has tremendous potential for applications in plant biology that require DNA, including barcoding methods for agriculture, conservation, ecology, evolution, and forensics.