Combining qualitative and quantitative imaging evaluation for the assessment of genomic DNA integrity: The SPIDIA
Chiara Maura Ciniselli1, Sara Pizzamiglio1, Francesca Malentacchi2
1Unit of Medical Statistics, Biometry, and Bioinformatics, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Abstract:
In this note, we present an ad hoc procedure that combines qualitative (visual evaluation) and quantitative (ImageJ software) evaluations of Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) images to assess the genomic DNA (gDNA) integrity of analyzed samples. This procedure could be suitable for the analysis of a large number of images by taking into consideration both the expertise of researchers and the objectiveness of the software. We applied this procedure on the first SPIDIA DNA External Quality Assessment (EQA) samples. Results show that the classification obtained by this ad hoc procedure allows a more accurate evaluation of gDNA integrity with respect to a single approach.
