We have developed a simple and efficient method for the preparation of total RNA from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast cells were incubated at 65 degrees C for 5 min in yeast RNA isolation buffer (10 mM EDTA, 50mM Tris-HCl, 5% SDS, pH 6.0), and the RNA was isolated and purified. The yield and quality of the isolated RNA was consistently high, and the isolated RNA was suitable for downstream applications, such as Northern blot hybridization and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR).