Overview
There are numerous commercial kits available for isolation of RNA from cell pellets, solid tissue or blood samples. We have manual isolation protocols based on Trizol and Qiagen RNAeasy kits (see Manual RNA Isolation Protocol) that have proved quite robust, however most commercial RNA isolation kits will work well in most cases, so we recommend users to continue to use a kit if they already have a favorite method. Of greater importance for most users is proper handling of the sample at the time of collection, since improper handling at this time frequently leads to poor quality RNA. We highly recommend that cell or tissue samples be isolated directly into RNAlater (or similar product) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This can make the difference between acceptable and unacceptable RNAs.