miRNA stability - (Feb/19/2008 )

Anyone have any experience with storing extracted RNA for miRNA analysis. How long are miRNAs stable when held at -80C. I know RNA in general is quite unstable but I would assume that miRNA are the most unstable fraction...is this true? Can I trust total RNA that has been stored for a year to maintain its miRNA fraction? Thanks!

I'm not sure on how stable they are when stored at -80. But I think that they are more stable than mRNA, or at least more resistant to RNases, because of their small size. I seem to recall that an Ambion Tech Note had some article about miRNA stability that you might want to search for. *Found it - here it is: http://www.ambion.com/techlib/tn/143/2.html