RNA isolation from human skin tissues for colorimetric differential display

High-quality RNA is essential when analyzing expression patterns of tissues by the differential display technique. However, the isolation of intact RN A can be very difficult when tissues are used that contain many RNAses or t hat are hard to homogenize (e.g. skin samples). We describe an improved pro tocol for the extraction of high-quality RNA of snap-frozen biopsies from s kin tissues that works in a reproducible and reliable manner. In addition, we developed a simplified non-radioactive differential display technique us ing RNA from small amounts of skin samples. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.