Ambient Temperature Stabilization of Purified RNA in GenTegra™ for Use in Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST Arrays

Abstract

RNA derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) is frequently used for gene expression analysis in human disease research. Once purified from cells or tissue, RNA stability must be maintained to avoid the loss of valuable samples. Preventing degradation of RNA, which is primarily induced by RNases that co-purify with nucleic acids or are introduced from the environment, is a major challenge, as is protecting purified RNA during long-term storage and transport. The Pediatric Rheumatology Tissue Repository and the Cincinnati Biobank Core Facility at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center face these challenges when working with RNA purified from Ficoll-isolated PBMCs (1-4). The use of purified RNA is an important part of the ongoing research to understand the biology and pathogenesis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and other immunologic diseases of childhood.