The fundamentals of RNA purification

The ability to purify, analyze, and manipulate RNA is now essential for many laboratories working in the life sciences; however, the skills and practices required to work with RNA are not present in every laboratory, and initiating RNA research can be intimidating. In this article, we provide an overview of RNA purification procedures and discuss strategies to prevent RNA degradation, so that any competent researcher can confidently purify RNA and use it to perform meaningful experiments from the most basic to the highly sophisticated.