PC extraction elucidations..... - (Jan/15/2008 )

Hello

Please forgive that I'm a total newbie. I was finding tricky to understand thoroughly PC extraction and did not found what I needed in the ufficial PC extraction post. I understood that the two phases are made up of: the top phase(aqueous phase) is water saturated with phenol, bottom phase(organic phase) is phenol+chloroform. Assuming that what I've just said is correct, why would DNA remain in the aqueous phase and proteins in the organic phase(which should be hydrophobic I think)??

Proteins are partly hydrophilic and partly hydrophobic, and tend to settle at the interface between the aqueous and phenol/chloroform boundary. DNA is highly charged and goes into the aqueous phase.