The MasterPure kit provides all of the reagents needed to purify RNA from various yeast cell types including: Candida, Saccharomyces, Schizosaccharomyces as well as filamentous fungi, such as Aspergillus. The kit uses a rapid desalting process to remove contaminating macromolecules, avoiding toxic organic solvents, bead beating, and spheroplasting. The resulting RNA is of high quality and is useful for gene expression analysis.