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Shajaat Hussain, Nisha Kapoor and Ritu Mahajan*
Plant Molecular Biology Lab, School of Biotechnology, University of Jammu, Jammu (J&K), India
Email: ritufeb@gmail.com
Received-22.08.2026, Revised-10.09.2026, Accepted-27.09.2026
Abstract: Presence of high concentration of secondary metabolites in Curcuma zedoaria rhizomes hampers the extraction and purification of high quality total RNA, which is pre-requisite for transcriptome and gene expression studies. The main challenge is with its rhizome tissues which are rich in polyphenolics, polysaccharides and tannins, that results in poor RNA yield both in quality and quantity, due to their co-precipitation and enzymatic degradation that further limits their use in molecular processes. Thus, development of a simple, convenient and affordable approach for RNA isolation from Curcuma zedoaria rhizomes is necessary to facilitate its molecular studies. In the present study, four different isolation protocols were compared to access the quality and quantity of total RNA isolated from fresh and frozen rhizomes of Curcuma zedoaria, where a modified Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) based protocol resulted in distinct and intact 28 S and 18 S rRNA bands. RNA isolated from fresh rhizomes exhibited A260/A280 and A260/A230 ratios of 1.98± 0.11 and 1.94± 0.02 respectively while RNA isolated from frozen rhizomes showed corresponding ratios of 2.08± 0.08 and 2.03± 0.04. The total RNA yield obtained from fresh and frozen rhizomes was 670.1± 0.07 μg/g and 630.8± 0.09 μg/g respectively. The results demonstrated that modified CTAB method minimizes the interference of secondary metabolites and enables the recovery of high quality RNA from C. zedoaria rhizomes. To best of our knowledge, this the first report describing a modified CTAB based protocol optimized for RNA isolation from C. zedoaria rhizomes for facilitating studies related to gene expression analysis and various molecular processes.
Keywords: Curcuma zedoaria, Polyphenols, RNA isolation, Secondary metabolites
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