Isolation of intact individual species of single- and double-stranded RNA after fractionation by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.

Abstract Procedures are described for fractionating single- and double-stranded RNA in the 0.3–3 × 10 6 -dalton size range in polyacrylamide gels, and for recovering intact molecular species from them. Electrophoresis was performed in 2.1% polyacrylamide-0.6% agarose-6 m urea (for single-stranded RNA) or 7.5% polyacrylamide (for double-stranded RNA) gels; bands containing RNA were then localized by staining with ethidium bromide; and RNA was recovered either by elution or by electrophoresis. Recoveries ranging from 40 to 80% of the RNA applied to gels were readily achieved.