measurement units of DNA - (Jul/11/2010 )

Dear All
G'day..

I'm asking about Measurement Units of DNA,

In some journals & websites there are some units used for DNA and RNA calculation, I don't know what its mean, and when I search about it, I don't find good information
I hope if you know about it..

For example:
this phrase:

Fill in answers to 1–3 and either 4 (for converting ng/ml to pM) or 5 (for converting pM to ng/ml).
what mean pM..?

and also this one:


What is the specific activity of your radiolabeled nucleotide stock (Ci/mmol)?

What is the concentration of your radiolabeled nucleotide stock (mCi/ml)?
what means by mCi, Ci

and many others....
is there any website, pdf, books or anything that describe the meaning?

Waiting for your kind response,..
And regards

This are commonly used abbreviations for the conversion of concentration units, in your examples
nanograms/microlitre to picomol/litre (p = pico = 10^-12; M = mol/litre)

Ci is the abbreviation for "Curie" a unit of radioactivity, defined as 1 Ci = 3.7×10¹⁰ decays per second or becquerels. mCi is then microCurie

The Lab-FAQs from Roche might answer many of your questions

hobglobin on Jul 12 2010, 08:01 PM said:

Isn't mCi rather millicurie than microcurie? Microcurie would be μCi or uCi.

I think its is indeed milli and not micro (µ)

pito on Jul 13 2010, 03:03 PM said:

Oppppssss you are of course right...I shouldn't post such stuff during an overheated evening...