Activated charcoal in DNA preparation ??

[Lisa Vawter]

I believe that many of the pigments that carry over even through
CsCl banding in a lot of insects are phenolics.  I once spoke with
an insect phenolics person who said he purified phenolics by
grinding his specimens with powdered Al.  Might be worth trying 
powdered Al in your grinding buffer.  Personally, I've always used
a high concentration of  PVP in my grinding buffers.  This seems
to adsorb a lot of the nasties.  What beast are you working on these 
days, Adam?    Lisa Vawter   vawter at green.harvard.edu