[Rapid method to extract high-quality RNA from activated sludge].

An effective and fast RNA isolation method of activated sludge was established and five different methods were compared based on RNA yield, purity, integrity, RT-PCR amplification of 16S rRNA genes and subsequent terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis. That is, the precipitated activated sludge was washed with TENP and PBS buffer, followed by using lysozyme and TRIzol to direct lysis of microbial cells, chloroform to remove protein and most of the DNA from bacterial lysate, isopropanol to precipitate nucleic acid and DNase I to hydrolyze residual DNA. To further purify RNA, RNA purifying column was utilized. The results demonstrated that the extraction method, with the aid of TRIzol and RNA purification kit, can effectively extract high-quality RNA. It not only means low degradability and high quantity, purity and diversity, but also the genes of 16S rRNA and amoA can be amplified by RT-PCR. Compared with other methods, it showed great advantage of low cost and high efficiency and can be applied to RNA extraction of activated sludge in a large number. Furthermore, T-RFLP results indicated that the community composition as well as the abundance of individual members was affected by the kind of RNA extraction methods. This work established a rapid and effective method to extract high-quality RNA from activated sludge and would show great potential for monitoring microbial changes and studying metabolism and community array of activated sludge.