low 260/280 ratio - (Feb/19/2002 )

i regularly extract rna from human islets [notoriously bad for rna extractions] and i use 0.3M sodium acetate and LPA carrier to aid in the precipitation step.

My problem is that although i have a 30 min incubation in DNase at 37 degrees, i get 260/280 ratios of below 1.5.  I have heard that the sodium acetate can interfere with the ratio, can anybody suggest how i may solve this problem.

Did you do phenol-chloroform extraction again after Dnase?

If you are short in RNA, you can use the DNase inhibitor instead of phenol-chloroform extraction