Application Guide: Multiple--Choice Northern RNA Blots

Identification of tissues that express a gene of interest is an essential first step for functional analysis. While gene expression panels are a highly sensitive and time-efficient system to measure specific transcript accumulation, they are only semi-quantitative and do not provide information about the size of the transcript. Though often laborious, Northern blotting enables the determination of sites of expression and provides information about transcript size, RNA quantification, cross-hybridization data, and alternate RNA splicing.