Starting material of highest practical quality is important in ensuring the best data is generated for experiments. While initial Nanodrop (UV/Vis) measurements are good for assessing sample purity and estimating concentration, microfluidic devices (eg. Agilent Bioanalyzer) have become the preferred instruments for assessing RNA quality and DNA size due to their high resolution and low sample usage.

All samples and libraries are required to be assessed prior to sequencing; the facility is able to perform this assessment at a reasonable cost for you if you don’t have access to these instruments. Where input concentrations are critical (or low by Nanodrop) a fluorescence measurement should be performed with an appropriate dye and reader (eg. Qubit) for accuracy. The table below shows the input requirements for some of the more commonly used Agilent sample assays.

AGILENT MICROFLUIDIC ASSAYS