Direct-zol™ RNA Miniprep by Zymo Research

"The kit procedures are easy and the price is competitive. However, I did not have luck with processing my tissue directly in Trizol solution as the kit intended. Yield was unusable. I did have success and good yield with the same kit when processing the samples from the aqueous phase of Trizol. For the cost and ease of kit which includes DNAse, I do recommend the kit for RNA isolation but for me I will not be using the direct in Trizol technique."

"We normally use Tri-reagent when extracting RNA from tissues (we work with poultry viruses and extract RNA from different tissues such as trachea, cecal tonsils, spleen, harderian gland, etc). I tried this kit to help streamline the process and get cleaner RNA. I like that I do not have to worry about losing the pellet during the extraction process because this uses columns and the RNA quality is very good."

"Direct-zol™ RNA MiniPrep is so effective. I need purified samples of total RNA from hepatic tissue as well as tumor-derived cells and in both cases, I obtain highly pure RNA that serves as a template for RT-qPCR. I have high reproducibility between qPCR assays. This kit is easy and ready to use. The extraction and purification are fast, following instructions without the possibility of contamination. The customer service after-sales is really efficient and kind. I think this kit offers excellent results to obtain high-quality samples for a just price."

"Very efficient for gram positive bacteria when combine with bead beating. Easy to use. Fast extraction leading to high quality RNA."

"Direct-zol RNA MiniPrep kits are easy to use and we get consistent results from our RNA extractions. It is also more cost effective than other kits we've used."

"Good deal. It works great. We use it for our brain samples and it has given us good results so far. We have contacted the sales team and found them to be helpful whenever we had any enquiries."

"This is very easy-to-use kit, fast and convenient. I also have good quality of my RNA purification, to be used in Real TIme PCR."

"This is a great kit, very easy to use with excellent and clean yield."

"This extraction kit is great. The protocol is easy to understand/follow and the protocol itself is quick making day-long extractions a thing of the past. I have been able to get great quality RNA out of these extractions to use for a multitude of different molecular processes. After care is basically non-existent, as long as you keep the reagent containers clean it is very easy to store the kit components. There's also plenty of reagent (and tubes/filters of course) to achieve the number of preps for the kit. I will definitely be using this kit in the future."

"High quality results with an easy procedure that is easy to reproduce. Would recommend"

"High quality results, easy to use, highly recommend it!"

"This product decreased my bench time tenfold! It was so quick and easy, and really made RNA extraction a breeze. I was able to get high quality and high concentration from this product. Additionally, the customer service I received when fine-tuning my protocol was so helpful!"

"The product was very good for extracting RNA in sufficient quantities. Hopefully in the future there will be more of the stock solutions."

"Cost-effective and fast."

"The kit is amazing.It is simple and color coding helped a lot, especially for processes that requires extraction of a lot of samples at the same time."

"Easy to use kit that gives reliably good yields of RNA. I like being able to lyse my bacteria in Tri-reagent and add that directly to the column. I've been having two problems with this kit - first, there is so much DNA leftover in the eluate (even when using the DNase I that comes with the kit) that I have to treat it twice with another DNase I after extraction. Second, I always get some amplification in my extraction control (doing all steps of the RNA extraction with no sample) during 1-step qPCR. My PCR controls are clean, indicating there is contamination occurring during extraction somehow. I'm very careful to not cross-contaminate my samples, but when using columns maybe it is not possible to avoid it entirely."

"This product is a life saver in our lab. So easy to use and the results are always great. It has became our standard for RNA isolations."

"This kit made our sequencing process much easier. We use a third-party for sequencing and this purification kit allowed for accurate results. It helped us create a more reliable SOP."

"I love the fact that it involves minimal manipulation and sample transfer - least number of steps. RNA integrity is well preserved. Decent, clean, concentrated mRNA+miRNA yield."

"We've found that the Direct-zol RNA Miniprep kit gave us the highest quality RNA for NGS library prep amongst several RNA extraction methods that we have tried. My lab have since implemented this kit in all our NGS workflow."

"Very reliable kit. Consistent output and easy to use. No excess materials given, good price."

"I achieved high yield and good purity."

"Very good isolation kit."

"Easy to use, don't have to use chloroform, just add alcohol and do a couple wash steps. This kit saves us so much time and money compared to the previous name brand kit we use and the RNA quality is the same, if not better, than our previous kit."

"This Zymo DirectZol RNA Isolation Kit has been great for our lab. It give us RNA for many applications, for us, Real Time PCR use and RNA sequencing use. It is very easy to use, with clear directions. Zymo has always been quick to answer any questions I have. And this kit costs less than some other kits we could choose. "

"Easy to use, very good yield."

"High quality, high yield, low elution volumes, easy on-column DNase digestion."

"The fastest way to obtain good quality RNA."

"Very quick and easy RNA extraction kit! Get very comparable yields to kits that take much longer."

"High quality, high yield."

"Is incredibly easy to use and has the most consistent results I’ve seen for how simple and easy it is!"

"DirectZol by Zymo has greatly increased the effectiveness of purifying RNA from our samples. It has cut back on the time spent during the procedure, allowed for greater quantities of RNA to be obtained, and has overall streamlined RNA extraction for qPCR analysis in our lab."

"It's great!"

"The instructions are easy to follow. The kits manufactured by Zymo Research are usually cost-effective compared to other brands. The yield is good."

"This product is extremely easy to use and provides excellent quality RNA for downstream applications. I use this product frequently."

"Great quality and quantity of the purified RNA. "

"The instructions are easy to follow. The kits manufactured by Zymo Research are usually cost-effective compared to other brands. The yield is good."

"High yield and quality of RNA with no carryover contamination compared to column based kit products offered by other manufacturers."

"Easy to use to isolate RNA from various tissue types. Very quick compared to traditional methods."

"This product has been effective in purifying and cleaning up my RNA samples. Quite easy to use and great yield."

"This product dramatically sped up my RNA extraction time and produced a clean, pure sample for downstream reactions. I will definitely be ordering again."

"I was struggling to get good quality RNA (for sequencing) using kits from other vendors (QIAGEN). The RNA miniprep and clean/concentrator was very efficient and gave me good quality RNA (RIN >7.5). I was finally able to do sequencing. I would recommend the combination of these two kits to get good quality RNA."

"The kit is both easy to use and very effective at producing high quality results."

"Initially, a colleague recommended this product. It was very easy to use and it took very little time compared to the trizol extraction protocol."

"This kit is quick and simple for RNA extraction and is not at all complicated. It's highly reproducible and of great value."

"It is a great kit and very easy to use. No complications and the RNA quality is good."

"Simple operation, quick prep and running. Add in a green pig and move even faster when you have 20+ samples!"

"Best kit out there for RNA purification. Provides clean RNA that can directly go to next-gen sequencing. Best value for money. a must have if you working with low abundance and small size RNAs."

"Very easy to use, very valuable to obtain RNA in limited tissues, reasonable price"

"Great product! It takes about 20 min to complete RNA extraction, and it's incredibly easy to use. 5 out of 5 stars!"

"It's easy to use and gives good results."

"The product is easy to use; after a couple of practice rounds the RNA concentration and quality comes out very good. The physical setup is simple and intuitive. I do wish more samples came with each kit, or that there was a kit in between 50 and 250 samples. We have been using this product for years now and always see consistency."

"I first started using the Direct-zol kit when it was first offered and have found it yields excellent RNA. The on-column DNase treatment is incredibly convenient, and this kit really is fast. As the kit says, the procedure for these RNA purification kits is easy: simply apply a prepared sample in TRI Reagent directly to the Zymo-Spin Column and then bind, wash, and elute the RNA. I personally used the eluted RNA for performing high-quality qRT-PCR reactions that provided me the high level of consistency in my COPD research. Now, I am using this kit and other like EZ DNA Methylation-Direct in my cancer research. Truly Zymo develops reliable kits that are easy to use and complete value for money."

"This kit was easy to use and gave great viral RNA yield. My only complaint is that I had to purchase Trizol separately, but not really a big deal. This kit is also cheaper than the Qiagen counterpart by $150. I have used both brands for separate projects but have not directly compared the two for RNA yield."

"There RNA isolation kits work well and the price is right. Comparable to much more expensive brands."

"Easy to use and quick! If you know you have good quality tissue/cells this kit works like a charm every time! I do notice that the output is usually less than what I would get from a traditional Trizol extraction, but the quality, speed and ease makes up for that my opinion!"

"High quality, easy to use."

"We needed to have a faster, easier workflow for less experienced lab workers to be able to do RNA extractions from tissue, and these kits are great! No phase separation or chloroform or BCP, and the RNA yield per mg tissue and the quality are excellent. The binding part of the column is in a better place within the column (lower & smaller) than other vendor kits, so there’s really no sample loss when eluting."

"Excellent and easy to use kit for RNA extraction. Provides good results and yield. Easy to follow instructions with provided columns and other tubes for extraction!"

"Direct-zol is the first RNA extraction kit I’ve found that gives me consistently high RNA yields from cultured neurons. It combines the quality of phenol-chloroform extraction with the convenience of column-based collection. Thanks Zymo!"

"I used this kit to purify cellular RNA for preparing samples for RNA-seq. Quick, high purity, reliable, and reproducible. Used to use a competitor, but cannot go back after using this kit."

"I achieve high quality and reproducible results, fast protocol that's easy to follow."

"I was pleasantly surprised using this product. My lab typically uses a hybrid of Trizol and the Qiagen RNeasy Kit to extract RNA. While the Qiagen columns work very well, it is quite expensive. You also aren't able to order the spin columns by themselves, and even if you have plenty of the reagents left for the kit, you have to buy an entire kit just to get more spin columns! The Direct-Zol Miniprep kit is much cheaper and you can buy the columns separately! This was a huge plus for me. It also works very well and is super easy. Separating the aqueous phase from the organic layer is always frustrating - you always worry about getting any bit of contamination. With this kit, you bypass this step and you don't have to deal with using any chloroform. Most importantly, my RNA was very pure - my 260/280 and 230/260 values were consistently between 2.0-2.1. In my experiments, I homogenized 20 mg of cortical tissue in 1 mL of Trizol using a glass dounce homogenizer (about 15-20 strokes) and let the solution sit at RT for 10 minutes. Then I centrifuged the homogenate for 2 minutes at 16,000 x g at RT to remove any insoluble debris. Then I followed the protocol outlined for the Direct-zol kit including treatment with DNase I. To elute the RNA, I used 30 uL of DNase/RNase free water. The only drawback to the kit was that my total RNA yields were much lower compared to the values I obtain using the Trizol/Qiagen RNeasy method. However, when I contacted Zymo about the issue they gave me technical help very quickly. Their tips were very helpful and did improve my yields. Although they were still lower compared to the yields I obtain using the Trizol/Qiagen RNeasy method, the amount of RNA extracted was more than sufficient for my experiments and very pure. That being said, if you have very small amounts of sample or tissue, this may not be the best kit to use. However, they do have other Direct-zol kits available that may be more applicable for smaller amounts of sample, I just have not used them. Overall, I was very satisfied with this product for my specific experimental applications and I really appreciated their great customer service! This product is super easy to use and I love how consistent the purity is! The price is super fair as well!"

"The protocol is very simple and quick to be followed. I tested in different types of cells and tissues, and quality and integrity of the recovered RNA are always satisfactory. The company also has an outstanding customer service, and whenever I have any question or concern I know that I can rely on them. The price of this kit is certainly worth it."

"I've been using this kit for a good part of my PhD and it has served me well both in terms of time and purity. The ease of use of this kit is unbeatable by other classic companies you might have been used to. The speed at which I could process 20+ samples just made my life as a PhD student way easier. The purity and yield of the final product was great and had enough to spare sometimes, which is something I can't say for other kits."

"This kit is an economical choice for RNA Miniprep. Repeatable, reliable quality and cheaper than those of other companies. Customer service is nice and they often have discounts."

"We have compared several RNA isolation methods and found that the Direct-zol kit has higher quality as well as higher yields of RNA. We now use it for all of our RNA isolation methods for large RNA isolations from cells or smaller RNA isolations from Exosomes/EVs."

"This kit is the only kit I have been using for RNA extraction for fungal samples. The in-column DNase treatment makes the procedure much more tolerable and efficient. I rarely have a problem regarding DNA contamination or poor product quality."

"This kit is very effective for RNA extraction from cells. It is easy to follow and allows inexperienced RNA users to get quality RNA on the first use - especially compared to phase separation. The on-column DNA digestion makes my workflow so much easier and the whole process takes less than 30 minutes. Tech support quickly answers any questions I have."

"This prep was easy to use and produced good, clean results. I got this as a sample at a conference, but I would purchase it to use in repeat experiments."

"High-quality, reproducible results with ease of use and, most importantly, no inhibitor carry over to downstream applications, including real-time PCR."

"RNA extraction from HEK293 cells worked great for cDNA synthesis by reverse transcription. Great cost and very quick compared to phenol extraction or other methods."

"I had some problems with the traditional extraction of RNA so I tested a free sample of Direct-zol for extraction of RNA which I later had to do an RNA sequence for. The steps are basic and easy, there is no step where you need to take extra precautions. I did see some degradation in my RNA, but overall it was fine as the RNA integrity was around 7.5, so I cannot complain. The only part where I am not completely convinced is the complete removal of my gDNA. Overall this product does its job, so I would recommend it for RNA extractions. P.S: The kit I got is the one where there is no trizol; I had to buy my own trizol and mix it with ethanol to load it onto the spin columns."

"I, being a genomics service provider have to extract Total RNA from various sources and have been using different commercial kits based on the tissue type which is a time consuming process. I came across this kit and requested a sample kit. The first reason that I am impressed with this kit is that, we can complete the RNA isolation within 30 mins. It works for plant samples as well. Even though you are provided with DNAse, you can comfortably skip this step as you don't get any DNA contamination. The quality (RIN) that I am getting for the cell lines is always >9. And for plants I usually get >7 always and total amount also not less than 2 uGs from 3 million cells/30 mg tissue. My RNA extraction time is drastically reduced to 30 mins from 2 hours. At the same time, I feel that there should be more post sale support. We were not contacted by any of Zymo team post sale."

"This is the only kit I could find to also get the small RNA fraction in order to perform RNAseq and study sRNA transcription. Reproducibility and simplicity are of high value."

"Zymo Direct-zol RNA miniprep product performs well in all samples and allowed isolation of high quality total RNA, which was used to carry out quantitative mRNA and microRNA work downstream accurately and repetitivley. This gave reliable results and allowed for comparison between different studies. Moreover, it is priced competetivley, and technical personnel at Zymo Research are friendly and helpful when contacted with any queries. I recommend Zymo products for researchers desiring accurate quantitative work on total RNA or MicroRNA, without any reservations."

"Great kit."

"I have used this kit many times during my Ph.D. and it has cut the time down for RNA extraction."

"Used for plant total RNA purification. Very fast, simple and reliable. The protocol is a single-step TRIzol extraction, followed by column purification of RNA. In-column DNAse treatment is also included, so no need for further RNA purification. I recommed a 30 min incubation (37ºC) to get rid of gDNA traces safely. The final RNA is suitable for cDNA synthesis and RT-qPCR. Yield is about 0.5 ug per mg of tissue and 260/280, 260/230 ratios are typical for high-purity RNA. Gel integrity check show high-quality RNA."

"This kit allows purification of high quality DNAseI treated RNA from tissue (human biopsies in RNA later in our case) and cell culture in about half an our. Differently from other kits "column purification-based", it guarantees the presence of small RNAs (such as miRNA) in your total RNA, as we assessed by RTqPCr and sRNA-Seq."

"I've been using Direct-zol RNA miniprep during my PhD and it has been hell of a change for the better for me. I manage to retrieve much more product from zebrafish embryos. It's more pure and easy to obtain with less starting material. I am extremely satisfied with this kit and highly recommend it to others."

"Efficient at both long and small RNA extractions. This kit has been cross tested with other Qiagen kits as well as traditional phenol/chloroform extractions from Trizol, and has consistently outperformed each method/kit. In our hands though, combining a pre-chloroform precipitation prior to adding to the columns also increases RNA yield as the columns likely bind to other material similar to RNA (eg sugars, DNA, etc) which impeded samples coming from stabilized preparations containing polysaccharides. Overall, this kit in my opinion has been instrumental in moving the needle foward in the molecular biology world. Thanks Zymo! I respect you as a company because you have demonstrated that you value the scientist and the science."

"I had never used this kit before until I recently joined a new lab group. Everyone used Zymo's Direct-zol RNA Miniprep for bacterial RNA isolation. I, at first, used Qiagen's kit for extracting bacterial RNA from animal samples because it was the kit I had used in previous labs. Though the animal sample processing step required more optimization, the Qiagen kit itself required a few additional steps to the protocol (at the recommendation of Qiagen support staff) that made it a tedious process. I switched to Direct-zol to see how this kit would work, and though there are a few more modifications that need to be made in the way animal samples are processed before extracting bacterial RNA, the Direct-zol kit was very easy to follow and required fewer steps and reagents. This kit was also a lot cheaper than Qiagen's when it came to the 200 prep kit."

"I love this very easy to use product. It's quick and there are not many steps. I feel more comfortable about the quality of my RNA at the end. There are not many place I can mess it up."

"I am very pleased with the performance of the Direct-zol Miniprep kit. I use the on column DNase I treatment and obtain good yields of high quality RNA for gene expression analysis. The process is quick and easy."

"Super fast way to get RNA! Less steps, so less of a chance for RNA to be lost during isolation. I love using Zymo products."

"Effective and easy to perform using a low number of cells."

"I have been using this product for 5 years now, first as a postdoctoral fellow where I compared a few kits alongside before deciding on this one as the best in terms of purity of isolated RNA and the miRNA yield we get as well. Now I continue to use it in my lab. It is slightly expensive, so I wish that the cost was lower, but the results are consistently great."

"This product allow us to bypass the extra chloroform step to extract RNA from the fat rich tissues. Good yield and consistent."

"Good quality for the money. Theoretically can give RNA in low volume."

"We are using this product because we had great difficulties in obtaining good quality RNA in tissues with low RNA amount and high lipid content such as white adipose tissue. With this kit we can use high amounts of tissue without any problem obtaining reasonable amounts of RNA of an extraordinary quality. The kit is extremely easy to use, after sales care is good and value for money is good if you take into account the RNA quality and the time expend in the extraction."