Background: RNA quality and quantity are important factors for ensuring the accuracy of gene expression analysis and other RNA-based downstream applications. Extraction of high quality nucleic acids is difficult from neuronal cells and brain tissues as they are particularly rich in lipids. In addition, most common RNA extraction methods are phenol-based, resulting in RNA that may be incompatible with downstream applications such as gene expression.

Findings: In this work, a comparative analysis of the RNA quality obtained from SK-N-MC cells was performed using six commonly used RNA isolation kits: two phenol-based kits and four non-phenol based kits. The non-phenol based kits tested AxyPrep Multisource Total RNA Miniprep, RNeasy Mini, EasySpin and Ilustra RNAspin Mini RNA Isolation, all performed well and resulted in the isolation of high quality RNA, as evaluated by A260/A280. The RNA extracted with AxyPrep Multisource Total RNA Miniprep, RNeasy Mini and EasySpin provided the highest RNA yields. In particular, the RNA isolated by AxyPrep Multisource Total RNA Miniprep Kit did not show any detectable genomic DNA contamination even without previous DNase treatment or after RNA direct PCR amplification using universal 18S primers.

Conclusions: The RNA extracted from SK-N-MC cells with AxyPrep Multisource Total RNA Miniprep Kit was superior with respect to the RNA quality and concentration. This kit does not use aggressive organic solvents and RNA free of genomic DNA was isolated without the need for DNase treatment.