Germinated seed from cereal crops including barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is an important tissue to extract RNA and analyze expression levels of genes that control aspects of germination. These tissues are rich in polysaccharides and most methods for RNA extraction are not suitable to handle the excess polysaccharides. Here, we compare the current methods for RNA extraction applicable to germinated barley tissue. We found that although some of these standard methods produced high-quality RNA, the process of extraction was drastically slow, mostly because the frozen seed tissue powder from liquid N₂ grinding became recalcitrant to buffer mixing. Our suggested modifications to the protocols removed the need for liquid N₂ grinding and significantly increased the output efficiency of RNA extraction. Our modified protocol has applications in other cereal tissues rich in polysaccharides, including oat.
Keywords: barley; cereals; germination; high-quality RNA; qRT-PCR; single-seed extraction; sprouted seed.