Deriving an RNA Quality Scoring Method Applicable to a broad Range of Instruments

March 10, 2026

RNA is highly fragile, prone to rapid degradation by RNases and damage from heat, pH shifts, or mechanical stress. Knowing the quality of extracted RNA is crucial because its integrity directly determines whether downstream experiments will work reliably. Ribosomal RNA integrity is a common proxy for RNA quality, assessed via electrophoresis, which reveals characteristic peaks in intact samples. Existing quality scores are often instrument-specific and limited to the connected software. Here, we propose a harmonized, robust workflow for detecting low-quality traces and introduce an instrument-agnostic RNA quality score for complex molecules. Tested on both, eukaryotic and prokaryotic datasets, our approach matches existing metrics while improving robustness and platform independence.