Sample collection may be progressing well but ultimately what we need is good quality RNA to run our analyses. This is a great challenge since bird blood is nucleated, therefore whole blood RNA is prone to degradation due to endogenous nucleases. Furthermore RNA is inherently unstable under field conditions.
In our new article in British Poultry Science, we evaluate three commercially available RNA preservation and extraction methods applied to avian whole-blood samples kept in different storage conditions to identify the most suitable ones for use in field studies and specifically this project.
Read more here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00071668.2022.2061838