silly? phenol question

[Ned Mantei]

In article <3B782FEC.14234.176ADB at localhost>, wolfsc at ibms.sinica.edu.tw 
("Wolfgang Schechinger") wrote:

>Hi all, 
>
>What actually is the reason for storing phenol in the dark 
>fridge? Does the reddish couloured compound (that evolves 
>when you store it on the shelf) harm DNA work?
>

The reddish oxidation product will damage RNA. My colleagues used to see 
this when isolating tumor virus RNA (ca. 10,000 nucleotides)--it was 
impossible to isolate full length RNA using oxidized phenol. We used to 
redistill our phenol and store it in aliquots at -20C. We now just add 
enough water to keep the phenol liquid at 4C, and then add 
8-hydroxyquinolone to 0.1% as an antioxidant.

-- 
Ned Mantei
Department of Cell Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland