Many species of beetles are abundant and perceived as pests when concerning food products, food storage/safety, and general crop health. The meal worm beetle, the Tenebrio molitor, is one of the most employed insect in research labs due to their ease of care, size, and similarity of biological processes compared to other organisms relevant to population control and food safety studies. Traditional DNA extraction methods can be time-consuming or limited in processing throughput, as it tends to require lengthy chemical digestion and incubation overnight for proper lysis. Dry grinding via mortar and pestle is another common – though manually intense – method. In this study, we developed an alternative method employing the Omni Bead Ruptor bead mill for DNA extraction as an example of effective sample disruption upstream biological analyte extraction from not only insects, but species with sturdy exoskeletons. The homogenizer was capable of processing multiple samples of T. molitor in up to 1 minute, demonstrating its effectiveness for high-integrity DNA extractions.

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.