5.3 Isolating RNA

Qiagen also has a methods article for RNA on their website. RNA is most often used to determine the expression level of protein coding genes. For studies that involve animals with varying treatment conditions (placebo vs drug1), we might want to do differential expression (DE) analysis. DE analysis can be accomplished using qPCR and RNAseq data in our lab.

RNA isolation (similar to DNA isolation) also depends on the sample type. RNA is also MUCH more sensitive to degradation by RNAse, so extra care has to be taken in order to preserve the RNA for downstream analysis.