Are you tired of running experiments just to yield poor-quality results? Do you have trouble capturing the true total RNA present in your precious samples? Are you missing important RNA species, especially small ones, during your purification step? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it might be time for you to explore Norgen’s proprietary RNA purification technology!

Norgen’s technology is proven to drastically improve RNA yield and quality compared to commonly used silica-based isolation methods. In this blog, we share 3 reasons why Norgen’s industry-leading patented RNA purification technology is best-in-class for total RNA purification.

No Hazardous Compounds

Phenol/chloroform is a hazardous compound used in many RNA isolation kits. Besides being hazardous, phenol/chloroform carryover from the isolation step can affect sensitive downstream applications such as PCR and next generation sequencing (NGS) due to its inhibitory effects on reverse transcriptase. This, in turn, leads to low quality results and even missed diagnosis. Norgen’s industry leading proprietary technology avoids the use of phenol/chloroform and other hazardous organic compounds all together, allowing the user to truly rely on their end results without worrying about the impact of phenol/chloroform carryover.

Size (and Content) Matters

Everyone who works with RNA knows that size matters, as not all RNA strands were created equal in length! Popular RNA isolation kits that use silica have clearly demonstrated to have a preference towards binding large RNA species. Norgen’s industry-leading technology has demonstrated best-in-class capture of the true total RNA content of the sample with no bias, including the most diverse collection of micro RNAs. Additionally, silica-based RNA isolations have also shown a bias towards high GC content RNA strands, which has consequently caused important papers to be retracted due to the biased findings. ^1,2 Norgen’s proprietary technology has demonstrated to have no bias toward high GC content species and therefore captures a more accurate picture of the true total RNA content of the sample. Simply put, we know that size and content matter to our customers and that is why we recommend our RNA isolation kits as best-in-class without any reservation.

Sensitive Results Need Sensitive Tests

By now, just about everyone we know has been tested for COVID-19 and we’re sure that most have heard of cases of false negative tests. Where the test is negative, but sure enough a few days later, the individual becomes symptomatic and tests positive for the virus. Especially at the beginning and height of the pandemic, these were critical results that had massive real-world implications. When it comes to obtaining a critical RNA isolation result there is no better RNA technology to trust than Norgen. In a paper published during the COVID pandemic Norgen’s proprietary RNA isolation technology was shown to be superior to competitors in detecting early phase infection, successfully detecting COVID in 100% of the positive samples whereas the silica-based competitor only detected 25%. Additionally, experiments have shown that our RNA technology remains linear in it’s yield with logarithmic decreases in cell concentration whereas competitors drop off at low concentrations without the use of RNA carriers ² . This becomes an issue with downstream applications such as sequencing efficiency. Therefore, when isolating RNA from important low-concentration samples the only option is Norgen’s Total RNA Purification Kits.

If you’re working with sensitive samples or simply looking to improve your RNA purification workflow, request a sample to try our best-in-class RNA purification technology in your lab!