Avian High-Molecular DNA Extraction

High molecular weight DNA was extracted from the blood of an Arabian 2-year-old female gyrfalcon weighing 1,400 g using the Nanobind magnetic disc-based method from Circulomics (Circulomics, Baltimore, MD, USA). The optimization included efficient homogenization of the blood with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) to avoid a viscous lysate and ensure proper lysis, considering avian erythrocytes contain high amounts of nuclei. 50 μL of avian blood provided more than 20 μg of DNA yield, quantified using broad range Qubit fluorometer (Invitrogen, USA). The DNA fragment size was 120 kb on the pulsed field gel electrophoresis.