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Impact of RNA Isolation Protocols on RNA Detection by Northern Blotting

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Small Non-Coding RNAs

Abstract

We prepared total RNA from the Gram-positive soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis by different RNA extraction procedures to compare their suitability for Northern blot detection of tiny RNAs (~14-mers) or RNAs of intermediate size (100–200 nt) in terms of signal quality, intensity, and reproducibility. Our analysis included two hot phenol methods and two TRIzol extraction procedures. We found that signal intensity/detection sensitivity makes the key difference. Total RNAs prepared by the hot phenol method comprise the length spectrum from tRNAs to large ribosomal RNAs. Larger RNAs are less abundant in TRIzol preparations which instead enrich for RNAs of tRNA size and smaller. Thus, hot phenol methods are the choice for the detection of intermediate-sized and longer RNAs, whereas TRIzol extraction procedures are more suited for the detection of tiny RNAs.

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References

  1. Beckmann BM, Grünweller A, Weber MH, Hartmann RK (2010) Northern blot detection of endogenous small RNAs (approximately 14 nt) in bacterial total RNA extracts. Nucleic Acids Res 38(14):e147. doi:10.1093/nar/gkq437, gkq437 [pii]

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GK 1384) to R.K.H. and G.K. and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (14-04-91336) to O.Y.B. and E.A.K.

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Correspondence to Roland K. Hartmann .

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Damm, K. et al. (2015). Impact of RNA Isolation Protocols on RNA Detection by Northern Blotting. In: Rederstorff, M. (eds) Small Non-Coding RNAs. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1296. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2547-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2547-6_4

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2546-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2547-6

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