Viscous RNA samples - (Mar/27/2009 )

Hello everyone,

For the first time in my life I extracted RNA from plant tissue using TRI reagent (SIGMA). Quick and easy. However, when I took my samples out of the freezer to take an aliquot to evaluate the integrity on a gel, I noticed that the samples became viscous, hence difficult to pipette. I don't know what this happened or if it good or bad. Any ideas?

Another thing that has me really worried. Last week I ran a MOPS gel to verify RNA integrity and it looked fine. This week I ran a second gel of new extractions along with the old ones (last week's gel). When I took the picture of my gel I was very worried since all my samples appeared to be degraded. I really hope that the sole reason this happened is because I used DEPC water to prepare my first gel and ultrapure water to prepare the second. Is it possible that the RNA degraded for no apparent reason?

most probably you have genomic DNA in your sample. I have the same problem recently. my friends told me to buy DNase I and add to my RNA samples from now on.....I am also using TRI