Help! RNA extraction from liver...

[Jon Cowan]

Andrew JACKSON <ajackson at cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:


>Hi folks.
>I seem to be having a problem extracting RNA from rat Livers. The RNA 
>produces bright streaks on 1% agarose gels (EtBr stained). The 28 & 18S 
>rRNA bands are merely brighter bulges in the streak. 
>The other tissues I have extracted RNA from seem OK. I get large yields 
>and little streaking. 

>Can anyone help me? Or at least tell me why this is occurring in the 
>liver but not in other tissues?

It's probably because liver is a very active tissue.  We use Triazol
in our lab to isolate RNA from developing gonads, and see the same
thing.