Efficient extraction and quantitative determination of nanogram amounts of cellular RNA

Richard M. Schultz, Paul M. Wassarman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

An assay for quantitating nanogram amounts of cellular RNA is described. RNA is efficiently extracted from cells, using RNA-free DNA as carrier, by conventional chloroform: phenol procedures and the nucleic acids are precipitated with ethanol. Isolated RNA is hydrolyzed by RNase T2 to ribonucleoside 3′-monophosphates which in turn are converted to 5′-32P-labeled ribonucleoside 3′,5′-diphosphates in the presence of T4 polynucleotide kinase and [γ-32P]ATP. Radiolabeled products are separated from remaining [γ-32P]ATP by chromatography on polyethyleneimine-cellulose, located by autoradiography, excised from the chromatogram, and subjected to liquid scintillation counting to quantitate the amount of RNA. Using mouse liver ribosomal RNA as a standard, the assay is linear over a range of 0 to 64 ng of RNA. The assay has been used to determine the amount of RNA in fully grown mouse oocytes arrested at the dietyate stage of first meiotic prophase. Each oocyte contains 0.61 ± 0.05 ng of RNA and only 25 oocytes have been used for such assays.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)328-334
Number of pages7
JournalAnalytical Biochemistry
Volume104
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 May 1980
Externally publishedYes

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