Figure 1

Assessment of chromatograms for total RNA degradation. (A) Objective assessment – (manually set parameters) included percentage area under the lower marker (LM), small fragment region (SR), 5S, fast region (FR), 18S, the inter-peak region (IR), 28S, post region (PR) and the 28S/18S ratio. (◆) defines the boundary of each of the regions. (B) Subjective assessment of the same sample before (blue) and after (red) being degraded at room temperature. The typical features included increase in baseline (primarily IR), decrease in 28S% area, 28S:18S ratio and RQI. (C) Subjective assessment of the same sample moderately (red) and highly (blue) degraded at room temperature. The typical features included increase in the baseline (FR, IR, SR), increase in 5S, and decrease in 18S% and 28S% areas as well as the 28S:18S ratio and RQI.