Extraction of high quality ribonucleic acid molecules from the rat brain by means of an inexpensive method

Extraction of high quality ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules from the high fat tissues such as brain has been a great challenge for neuroscience researchers. Expensive kits have been developed to overcome this challenge. However, many researchers are unable to use due to lack of financial resources. In this study a simple and inexpensive method is suggested.

One month old male Wistar rats were anesthetized by chloroform and their hippocampus was removed. Total RNA of the brain tissue was extracted by RNX-Plus solution from Sinaclon Company. The quality of the extracted RNA was evaluated by Nanodrop spectrophotometer and measuring the 260/280 and 260/230 absorbance ratios.

The mean weight of the dissected hippocampi was 60.2 ± 1.2 mg. The mean absorbance ratio of 260/280 and that of 260/230 were obtained 1.88±0.02 and 1.9±0.03, respectively. The agarose gel electrophoresis indicated presence of the ribosomal RNAs 28s and 18s and the extracted RNA had a good quality. The mean concentration of the extracted total RNA was 608 ng/μl.

The results indicate that it is possible to extract high quality RNA molecules from the brain tissue by an inexpensive method. Therefore, the presented protocol is recommended to molecular neurobiologists.