Validation of lab-on-chip capillary electrophoresis systems for total RNA quality and quantity control

Purity and good RNA quality are important elements for the overall success of RNA based analysis methods like microarrays and real tine qRT-PCR. There are two commercially available automated systems - the Experion (Bio-Rad Laboratories) and the 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies) - that provide both RNA sample quality and quantity analysis. In this study different aspects like the reproducibility, and sensitivity of both systems were analyzed by determining the total RNA quality and quantity\ extracted from various bovine tissues. Regarding quantitation, the Experion is more sensitive than the: 2100 Bioanalyzer: Both systems overstate the concentration by 19-29% compared to the photometric values. For RNA quality determination, both systems show highly comparable reproducibility. With the RNA integrity number (RIN) the 2100 Bioanalyzer offers an additional opportunity to quantify the RNA quality.