Bioanalyzer chips can be used interchangeably for many analyses of DNA or RNA.

Abstract

The Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer enables small-scale gel electrophoretic separation of nucleic acids on a microfluidic chip; however, a shortage of chips and an excess of reagents are common issues. Here we explore the compatibility of two commonly used Bioanalyzer reagents with three Bioanalyzer chip types. Microfluidic electrophoretic separation of DNA and RNA using DNA High Sensitivity and RNA 6000 Nano reagents, respectively, was successfully performed on multiple chip types following the assay-specific protocols. For RNA quality and next-generation sequencing (NGS) library length estimation, the Bioanalyzer chips we tested can be used interchangeably. These findings will be valuable for any laboratory using the Agilent Bioanalyzer in a shared facility.