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

it also seems to me that this material can be used for further experiment, the thing is it needs to be cleaned. unless you´re going to do something extremely sensitive as real-time pcr or something like that, e.g. rt-pcr, then it should be fine.

The samples are fine. Congrats!

So what is all the smearing and what are all the other bands ? I have isolated total RNA from tumour samples and cell pellets and only ever seen two distinct bands. I wouldnt use these.

Try to get an affimetrix RNA nano assay (check in your university maybe somebody have one) to check it. There is also DNA, so first digest with dnase. The samples aren't perfect but they are usable.

In me M.A. I extracted hundreds of plant RNA samples (from apple peel).
In my experience you're samples are good!!!
You shouldn't have any problem cloning/PCR/qPCR these samples.

In plant RNA you can get up to 6 or 7 bands.
2 from the plant rRNA
3 from the mitochondria rRNA
3 from the chloroplast rRNA
Some of the mitochondria and chloroplast rRNA overlap in size.
The background smear is the mRNA.

Hi molgen,

Iam not an experienced person in RNA work. I would like to clarify .. I thought the background smear indicates RNA degradation contrary to your saying that it is mRNA . then how do we distinguish between degraded RNA and mRNA in the total RNA sample.

Thanks