Samples accidentally thawed - (Mar/25/2015 )

Hello, 

I had some tissue samples stored in -80 and I am planning on extracting the RNA from these samples.

While cleaning out our freezer today I accidentally forgot to put this box back in the freezer.  It was around 1 hour before I realized it was left at room temperature.  I know there will be some RNA degradation but I cannot find any data that has documented RNA degradation over time in whole tissue samples.  Does anyone know of any such data or have had any experience in a similar situation.

They are quite precious samples so any information anyone has would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.  

You cannot undo what is already done. Regardless of what the literature shows, about the only you can do with your tissues is extract RNA then run it on a denaturing RNA gel or Bioanalyzer to confirm the quality. If the RNA is intact then you can use it for your expression studies.