Can I extract plasma RNA from blood collected in PAXgene tubes?
(Thread 21826) Q I want to extract RNA from the plasma of blood collected in PAXgene tubes, but the extraction kit is for intracellular RNA from whole blood. Does anyone know if I can spin the tubes and use TRIzol to extract RNA from the supernatant? The supernatant will contain plasma diluted in the RNA preservative solution found in PAXgene tubes. Will the RNA preservative hinder the TRIzol extraction? A It should work, but since you have a liquid sample, you may need Tri-Reagent-LS instead of regular TRIzol. Q I added 1125 µL of TRIzol LS to 525 µL of PAXgene supernatant. The yield was ~1.5 g nucleic acid, but the RNA was not clean. The 260/280 ratio was 1.7 and the 260/230 ratio was 0.3. There was a large peak at 230 which might be guanidine or phenol. Also, the peak is not at 260 nm but is closer to 270. Why is this? A Phenol has an absorption at A270. Maybe you should try pelleting or concentrating the cells in the RNA preservative before extraction. Does the preservative protoco
