stored RNA - is it any good

[Chris Herbert]

Andrew

   There are 2 ways to check the RNA quality.  Firstly you should determine
the purity of the RNA using the A260/A280 ratio.  This should be around 1.9
for good quality RNA.  The second way is to run approximately 1 microgram of
the RNA (determined from the A260 value) on a 1% agarose gel for 1 hour at
60V and look for the presence 28S and 18S rRNA.  These should be show as
distinct bands on the gel with the 28S band at roughly 2-3 times the
intensity of the 18S rRNA band.  If you can't see these bands then the RNA
is degraded and shouldn't be used for RT-PCR or Microarrays as the quality
of data obtained from these is dependant on having high quality template RNA.

I hope this is of some use.  If you need any further advice don't hesitate
to contact me.

Good luck!
Chris


<http://www.biowww.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=2934&t=2922>