The Core provides nucleic acid assessment services to quantify and determine purity and size of RNA and DNA isolated from nearly any biological source. The quality assessment (QA) service is supported with a variety of measurement instruments, including several UV spectrophotometers, a plate reader, a fluorimeter and state-of-the-art Bioanalyzer systems including the Agilent 2100 and TapeStation 4200.

Proper quantitation and size analysis of RNA and DNA samples prior to downstream processing provides useful insight into sample quality, purity, and integrity which can help ensure high quality data and improved reproducibility.

Our trained staff is experienced at analyzing both RNA and DNA quality and the core provides comprehensive assessment reports to aid investigators with interpreting their results.

Services offered

• RNA (eukaryotic, prokaryotic, FFPE, small RNA) quality assessment
  • UV measurement at 260, 280, 230nm
  • Bioanalyzer assay of total or mRNA : Agilent RNA 6000 Nano or RNA 6000 Pico chips ; quantitative and qualitative threshold for the RNA 6000 Nano chip is 25ng/µl and for the RNA 6000 Pico chip, 50pg/µl 

• • Fluorescent assays 
    • RiboGreen RNA Quant-iT Assay Kit (Invitrogen)
    • Qubit fluorescent assay (ThermoFisher)
• DNA (fresh, frozen) quality assessment
  • Tapestation analysis of genomic DNA and FFPE DNA from 200 > 60,000bp (10-100ng/µl)
  • Bioanalyzer analysis for low concentration DNA (ChIP for example)
  • UV and/or fluorescence measurements available
  • Fluorescent assay (PicoGreen, Life Technologies) - optional
• Fragmented DNA and Library quality assessment
  • High Sensitivity DNA chip assay, minimum sensitivity 5-500pg/µl
  • Fluorescent assay (PicoGreen, Life Technologies) - optional

To request assessment services, please use the iLab system.