Plant DNA extraction is complicated by cell walls and secondary metabolites: polysaccharides, tannins, and phenolics co-purify with DNA and inhibit PCR. Current methods use tissue grinding followed by silica columns or organic solvent precipitation.

Exymes Application Note 020 compared phytoGEM against the QIAGEN Plant Mini Kit across six species: Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa (rice), Zea mays (maize), Triticum aestivum (wheat), Solanum lycopersicum (tomato), and Citrus limon (lemon).

phytoGEM produced higher DNA yield per mm² for four of the six species: Arabidopsis, rice, maize, and tomato. The QIAGEN kit outperformed on lemon. Results were comparable for wheat. The phytoGEM method ran in 15 minutes from a 50 mm² punch.

Amplicons from nuclear and chloroplast genes — 200 to 2,300 bp — were successfully generated from all six species.