DNA isolation from timber wood of Melia dubia Cav. for wood forensics

Globally, illegal trading of commercial timber and related products has become a persisting problem, and unfortunately, most valued tree species are facing devastating impact leading to exorbitant economic losses and environmental threats. Melia dubia Cav. is one such species, and is being promoted for deployment under various agroforestry and farm forestry systems. Though selected trees of this species are being felled illegally and exploited by timber traders for their benefits, no legal action is contemplated due to lack of authentic method of wood identification. Pre-requisite for such forensic analysis is to isolate DNA with maximum purity which becomes base for polymerase chain reactions (PCR) enabling development of DNA fingerprints. Thus, present study purports towards standardization of DNA extraction protocol from timber of Melia which could be used for identifying tree sources using forensic tools. During experimentation, concentration of sodium bisulphite and sorbitol was modified so as to remove polysacharides and polyphenolic substances. The developed protocol enabled high quality genomic DNA with wider quantity of 424.40 to 757.00 μg/ml. SSR markers were also used for predicting quality of DNA which could form baseline for wood identification. Clear and distinct bands confirmed good quality of DNA amenable to PCR amplifications.