Isolation of RNA from E. coli - agarose gel?

Question

In an experiment isolating RNA how can I be reasonably sure that the preparation of mRNA, which is 'invisable' in the gel, is of good quality with minimum degradation?

Answer 1

You can use the state of the most abundant RNA (ribosomal RNA) as an indicator of the overall quality of the RNA prep.  The ideal test would be to run a sample on a Bioanalyzer.  One could also run a small sample on an agarose gel to visualize the two main bands from ribosomal RNA.  If the ribosomal RNAs look smeared and degraded then it is likely that other RNAs are degraded.

Answer 2

Could you stain the gel with ethidium bromide to visualize the nucleic acids?