Solubilizing RNA in water

[Simon Mauch]

>I've been using a product called Tri-Reagent to isolate RNA from tobacco plants.  
>I get large amounts of RNA but often the pellet is insoluble in water after the 
>75% ethanol wash, even when I don't dry the pellet at all.  I need to be able to 
>go into an RT-PCR with my sample.  Does anyone have a solution?
>

You could use (deionized) formamide instead of water. RNA (and other
stuff) will solubilize very rapidly (up to 2-4 mg/ml) in formamide. 
I did some RT-PCR on RNA solubilized in formamide instead of water and
had no problems with it. The direct comparison of water-RNA versus
formamide-RNA showed the same RT-PCR results in my hands.

Simon