RNA Quality
Extracting intact, good quality RNA is critical for successfully studying samples with microarray analysis. This can be particularly challenging to researchers deriving RNA from tumors with a high proportion of necrosis, and to those using laser capture and other methods with low RNA yields. However, poor RNA quality and any impurities in the sample extraction can result in biased data, and can produce inaccurate and misleading results. For this reason all samples processed in the Duke Microarray Facility must pass quality check standards before proceeding to microarray analysis. The primary criteria for determining RNA quality include:
- Absorbance ratio at 260/230 (measured by NanoDrop ND 1000 spectrophotometer): 1.0 to 2.0
- Absorbance ratio at 260/280 (measured by NanoDrop ND 1000 spectrophotometer): 1.7 to 2.0
- RNA integrity (measured by Agilent Bioanalyzer, scored by RIN): > 7.0
For more information on RNA quality see links on our website.