Figure 3.

Consistency and reproducibility of HTP plant RNA extraction procedure. A: The HTP RNA procedure was performed manually using multi-channel pipettes with either centrifugation or vacuum to pass liquids through the binding plate or automated using a liquid handling robot with a vacuum. All three protocols (manual centrifuge, manual vacuum and automated vacuum) isolated similar amounts of RNA (loading lysate from ~20 mg plant tissue per well). Data are expressed as mean RNA concentration (ng/μl) per well of 96 well plate ± SD. B: Results from 4 different 96 well plates processed using the automated procedure (384 samples) demonstrate that the method is reproducible both intra- and inter-plates. Results are presented as a box and whisker plot of the concentration of RNA isolated (ng/μl; each well containing 50 μl). The bottom and top of the boxes are the 25^th and 75^th percentiles and the band in the middle is the median. The ends of the whiskers are 1.5 × interquartile range and data points outside this are considered outliers. There are no outliers in plate 1, 1 upper (230 ng/μl) and 2 lower (87 ng/μl and 96 ng/μl) in plate 2, 1 lower outlier (56 ng/μl) in plate 3 and 2 lower outliers (86 ng/μl and 87 ng/μl) in plate 4. The maximum and minimum outliers for each plate (if any) are shown in the box and whisker plot.