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 100g of soil using direct lysis with glass beads and SDSfollowed by potassium acetate precipitation, polyethylene glycol precipitation, phenol extraction and isopropanol precipitation.