Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100

The Agilent Bioanalyzer is used for RNA, DNA and protein analysis.

Total RNA quality

The Bioanalyzer can be used to look at total RNA quality by observing the 18S and 28S ribosomal peaks and their ratio, or 16S and 23S peaks of prokaryotes. The 28S/18S ratio should be 2, but often is much less with the RNA being of good quality.   More important than the ratio is the degradation in the peaks. Look for the amount of degradation between the 18S and 28S peaks and the area smaller than 18S. Software now gives a RIN number to give a quality assessment of the total eukaryotic RNA.   The RIN number does not work for prokaryotic samples and samples with extra ribosomal peaks such as from chloroplasts before the 18S peak.

mRNA quality

The bioanalyzer will also look at mRNA. You can see contamination with ribosomal RNA and the approximate the size range of the mRNA.

Quantification

The bioanalyzer also quantifies RNA, but it is not always accurate.   It is best to quantify RNA before running on the bioanalyzer, and run all samples with the same concentration to make a good sample-to-sample comparison. The accuracy range of the RNA 6000 Nano chips is from 100ng/ul to 500ng/ul. Overloading or underloading will give inaccurate concentration results, or may clog the channels. There are Pico chips available which will read less concentration but we are not purchasing them at this time.

Other Chips

There are also DNA chips, protein chips available for use on the same instrument.   There is also a flow cytometry option that we do not have. You can find more information on the web site at Agilent.

Order