Synopsis: A consistent, sensitive method for RNA quality control is critical to reliable expression profiling studies as degraded sample or impurities can affect the interpretation of expression levels in relation to biological or clinical parameters. Working with breast cancer tissue, Carina Strand of Lund University compares three methods for evaluating RNA quality in Agilent bioanalyzer electropherograms, including visual inspection, 18S/28S ratio, and the RNA integrity number (RIN) computed by the bioanalyzer software. Her discussion on the performance of each evaluation method (based on sample clustering) and ways to validate a RIN threshold value provide valuable insight on RNA quality control. Watch Now