RNA Scans- Weird Traces

[theodorn at medlib.georgetown.edu]

In article <6mmcqa$2lm$1 at nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  mbarnhart at my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> Our laboratory is using Guanidinium-thiocyanate/acid phenol to purify RNA
> from muscle tissue.  Lately, our spectrophotographs have been showing strange
> peaks that max out at 270.  This has been consistent across virtually every
> sample for a  couple of weeks  now.  If anyone has any ideas what this
> contaminant might be, how we are getting it, or how to get rid of it, could
> you let me know?  This is getting bothersome at this point.
>
> Thanks
> Michael Barnhart
> Laboratory Supervisor
> Connective Tissue Physiology Lab
> University of Houston
>

Could be traces of phenol; it might have an absorbance peak of around 270 nm.
You could try re-precipitating the sample, or extracting with chloroform (w/
no phenol, obviously), or both.

Nick Theodorakis

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