Please consult Director before starting anything if it’s possible. Each core has different approach depending on available instruments and each project is different. I’d like to prepare everything at the best expectation and careful planning of the project will be the key to the success.
The best approaches I would propose for submitting solid tissues for RNA extraction are as follows:
1. Use RNAlater to preserve tissue. By preserving in RNAlater we have a lot more options to manipulate samples before the tissue homogenization.
2. If no access to the RNAlater, you can still submit the tissue as fresh frozen but be considerate to store the tissue in a ‘ready-to-go’ format to homogenize as they can not be exposed to elevated temperature (so limiting our availability to handle the tissues). Our ‘ready-to-go’ format is as follows: the mass that would work best for processing in our core is 30mg so I would ask you if you can prepare smaller tissue pieces at about 30mg, other than that we can grind the tissue here but it’s additional cost/time and source of potential cross contamination so it is best that the tissue to be cut smaller or pulverized at the site of dissection. The best tube to contain the tissue is safe-lock 1.5mL tubes from Eppendorf.
Thank you!!!