Two strategies have been developed to improve DNA recovery in terms of yield,purity and unbiased representation of the microbial diversity.However,amplification of DNA from soil is often inhibited by co-purified contaminants.Furthermore,DNA is also suitable for PCR amplification using various DNA targets.This review presents an overview of the available methods to achieve this challenging objective.DNA was extracted from 100 g of soil using direct lysis with glass beads and SDS followed by potassium acetate precipitation,polyethylene glycol precipitation,phenol extraction and isopropanol precipitation.