Methods and reagents for inactivating ribonucleases

摘要

The present invention is a general method for inactivating or inhibiting ribonucleases. Ribonucleases are treated with a reducing agent and heat. RNA samples contaminated with ribonuclease may be treated with this method to protect them from degradation. The RNA may then be used directly in a variety of enzymatic reactions and molecular biology techniques. This method may also be applied to a variety of molecular biology reagents which may be contaminated with ribonuclease to protect an RNA from being degraded when incubated with the reagent.