Contamination problems on DNA isolation from 'recalcitrant plant taxa' which is rich in polysaccharides have been commonly encountered in a wide range of research fields such as plant population biology, biodiversity, and molecular marker-assisted breeding. Here we present an improved protocol to extract DNA efficiently from dry or fresh leaves of a 'recalcitrant plant taxa', Betula alnoides Buch. Ham. ex D. Don in which three key steps are involved: 1) washing out most of polysaccharides and other secondary compounds with CTAB-free buffer from homogenate; 2) adoption of 3% CTAB rather than 2% CTAB in the exaction medium; and 3) using of high concentration of salt prior to DNA precipitation with isopropanol to remove residual polysaccharides. The isolated DNA has been proved suitable for RAPD-PCR amplification and restriction digestion. This modified procedure is simple, inexpensive and reliable, and is also applicable to many other plant taxa with high polysaccharides.
