RNA quantification

[Michael Holloway]

In article <1993May10.163243.1 at mpimg-berlin-dahlem.mpg.de> wegloehner at mpimg-berlin-dahlem.mpg.de (Wolfgang Wegloehner) writes:
>dear netters
>
>i am trying to evaluate rna-dot-blots and nothern-blots with densiometric
>scanning methods. i got problems with the nonlinear relation between blots and
>the densiometric measure. who got expierience in evaluating blots and knows
>some literature concerning the subject.

My 2 cents:

Slot blots are supposed to be more quantitative so long as you can be sure 
that your probe is very specific - which means that you have to run some
Northerns anyway.  I don't seem to have had any problems with laser scanning
my Northerns.  It's easy enough to convince yourself that your in a linear 
range.  Just expose for different periods.  All this presupposes that you
have nice clean autorads, zero degradation of your RNA, and no nonspecific
background hybridization.  The real test is whether or not the results are
reproducable.  If so, then I wouldn't worry.

Mike
mhollowa at ccmail.sunysb.edu