An excellent post-facto control probe is the maize 9 kbp rDNA repeat unit,
which encodes both the small and large ribosomal RNAs. These are always
present at essentially equal levels among RNA preps, and are sufficiently
large that integrety for them in a Northern generaly indicates the RNA of
interest should also be reasonably intact. The reason this is a
*post-facto* control is that there is usually such a high signal when these
RNAs are probed that the blot is usually too black to see anything else for
months afterward. The clone containing this fragment may be obtained from
Dr. Mike McMullen, whose address is <mcmullen at teosinte.agron.missouri.edu>.
At 9:48 AM -0600 11/30/98, Jonathan Walton wrote:
>FWD to bionet.maize from MaizeDB (Mary Polacco):
>-----------------------------------------------------
>>I need a good control probe to verify RNA quality and equal loading of
>lanes on Northern blots. Some maize gene that is highly and universally
>expressed. Actin? tubulin?
>>I realize that some people just stain the rRNA bands with ethidium as a
>control, but I would also like to verify that my hybridization conditions
>are reasonable.
>>Thank you very much,
>---
Robert A. Bouchard Phone: 330-263-2433 [Note: new]
Department of Biology FAX: 330-263-2378 [area code]
Mateer Hall eMail: RBOUCHARD at ACS.wooster.edu
931 College Street, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691-2363