Materials and methods for capture of pathogens and removal of aurintricarboxylic acid from a sample

The present invention concerns methods and materials for extracting infectious pathogens from a sample, such as blood, comprising the steps of creating a fibrin aggregate confining the pathogens and introducing a fibrin lysis reagent to expose the pathogens for analysis. The fibrin lysis reagent is preferably composed of plasminogen and streptokinase frozen in coincident relation until the fibrin lysis reagent is needed whereby streptokinase enzymatically reacts with plasminogen to form plasmin upon thawing. Preferably, the plasminogen is suspended in an aqueous salt solution prior to freezing including NaCl and Na 3 PO 4. Thesubject invention also concerns materials and methods for efficiently removing ATA from a sample comprising nucleic acid composition. The subject methods provide a nucleic acid composition sufficiently free of ATA such that a RT-PCR reaction and other reactions involving reverse transcriptase can be performed.