Quality of RNA after extraction - (Aug/26/2008 )

Hi all,
I'm going to extract RNA for the first time. I want to know how to check the quality of RNA after extraction. I mean how i could know that the RNA I've extracted is of good or poor quality?
Thanks

Run gel, and look at whether you have two sharp bands.

This can help you: http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/inde...showtopic=38954

Before running gel I suggest you to make a spectrophotometric reading (if you have enough material...).
The two nucleic acids are indistinguishable in this way, but -at least - you will have some clue on if you extracted something and of its purity. If you perform a DNAse treatment, it will probabily be RNA, so you can have some idea of the concentration too...

Then run gel (as microlight suggested) and you will know if it's RNA and how much it's degraded...

if there's a nanodrop ® available check the concentration and the curve ratio, that should help and you don't need a lot of material to do it

or using a Bioanalyzer.

[attachment=5258:tomato_WTRNA2.jpg]
Alright friends,
here is my first tomato wild type RNA extraction pics using trizol reagent, uploaded it just to hear any comments for improvement. Its a 1% agar gel with central 5 wells loaded with 1 microL RNA. both sides loaded with marker but i think its unnecessary.

[attachment=5258:tomato_WTRNA2.jpg]
Alright friends,
here is my first tomato wild type RNA extraction pics using trizol reagent, uploaded it just to hear any comments for improvement. Its a 1% agar gel with central 5 wells loaded with 1 microL RNA. both sides loaded with marker but i think its unnecessary.

The result is good. You can do the following experiment.