Long term storage for RNA extracted from pancreas - (Mar/03/2013 )

Dear All,

Currently, i managed to extract RNA from rat pancreas and I eluted the RNA using RNase free water but I was told that the RNA is not stable in watrer especially extracted from pancreas.
What shall I do to save my pancreas RNA?
I cannot afford to convert all the RNA to cDNA (cDNA is more stable than RNA?) due to the limited reactions available
Please help!
Thank you very much.

One way is to precipitate the RNA with salt and ethanol, spin it down, and store it at -80 in the ethanol. To use it, the ethanol is removed, the pellet is washed with 70% ethanol, and the RNA resuspended. Of course the 70% ethanol and resuspension must be done in RNAse free solutions.

There are commercial solutions- I have used RNAlater which preserves the RNA in tissue and cells and there is a solution that apparently preserves isolated RNA but I've never tried it:
http://www.biomatrica.com/rnastable.php I'm not sure what is in it but might be useful.

i agree with phage434; you can keep your RNA samples in 70% EtOH, but if you have extra cash, you can also purchase proprietory solutions like RNAlater. as far as i know, RNA should do just fine in -80C whether from pancrease or not. i am not sure why pacreatic RNA would be any different than RNA from any other tissues. and btw, yes, cDNA, or DNA, is much more stable than RNA. if that wasnt the case, forensics would be nearly impossible.

my best,

jeff kwak