Hi everyone, in most of my lab experiments during RNA isolation we use animal tissues rather than plant tissues. Generally we know animal tissues have more protein production, high amount of nucleic acids than animals ....so i always think plants have more RNA than animals but in my labs we do isolation of RNA from animals. I want to know the reason behind that.
Well, you choose the most appropriate model system that can answer your research questions. It seems that your lab specializes in animal biology. The aim of the research project(s) does not seem to involve plants so that is probably the reason why in your lab plants are not used for RNA isolation and transcriptome analysis.
Cheers, Christian
What kind of question is that?
If your research project is supposed to answer a question regarding, let's say, gene expression in cows, you would probably not extract RNA from the plants you feed them with...
What sort of "lab" are you talking about? Are you talking about a "lab section" that is attached to your lecture classes at school, or are your talking about a laboratory where your work under a supervisor in a relatively specialized field of research. If it is the first type of "lab", the answer is simple, it's harder with plant tissue. Plant tissue possesses large amounts of cellulose and other polysaccharides which must be adequately ground or shredded to obtain high quality nucleic-acid, particularly RNA. Simple lysis with a detergent does not cut it with plants, but is usually sufficient in animal tissues, so long as some mechanical disruption is applied to the tissue (this is however relative to the tissue being used). So, to satisfy the ends of an educational lab, animal tissue is simply easier and more time and cost effective.
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