Fresh Frozen Tissue: RNA Extraction and Quality Control

Since RNA is believed to be the most vulnerable molecular component of unfixed tissue, preserved RNA integrity can be used as a general quality indicator in fresh frozen tissue biobanks. As the size of samples and biopsies often is small, in the range of millimeters or milligrams, it is important to implement quality control procedures adapted to minute the amounts of tissue. To this end, we here describe RNA extraction from one or a few frozen tissue sections and subsequent analysis of structural RNA integrity by microcapillary gel electrophoresis.