Patent ID: 7569367

Claim:
A method for purifying nucleic acids from a whole blood sample comprising the steps of: (a) providing a whole blood sample from a mammal, wherein the sample is not older than 5 minutes; (b) mixing the sample with an anticoagulant; (c) mixing the sample and anticoagulant with an aqueous stabilization reagent to form a composition, the stabilization reagent comprising a non-ionic detergent and a guanidinium salt, wherein the final concentration of the guanidinium salt in the composition is between 15% and 35% weight by volume, and the final concentration of the non-ionic detergent in the composition is between 3% and 10% volume by volume; (d) incubating the composition for about 10 minutes; (e) shock-freezing the composition, thereby solidifying the composition homogeneously; (f) thawing the frozen composition in the presence of an aqueous lysis reagent comprising a guanidinium salt, wherein the volume of the lysis reagent adjusts the concentration of the guanidinium salt in the thawed composition to between 3.5 M and 4.2 M, further in the presence of dithiothreitol (DTT), wherein the concentration of DTT in the composition after thawing is between 0.01% and 0.1% weight by volume; (g) adsorbing the nucleic acids in the composition from step (f) onto a solid phase; and (h) desorbing the nucleic acids from the solid phase with an elution buffer, thereby purifying the nucleic acids.