Gel Electrophoresis

[dolphinscales]

Hello everyone

does anyone do electrophoresis?
is there an alternative -loking at the price of gear , chemcials and all that - but thought there could be an alternative or a cheaper way of doing this and if there is the people of the Chemtalk community are bound to know.

[rae]

Hi,
We tried this last year with an old Carolina kit. It was most unsuccessful. Everything was too old. However, I do have to other methods that I would be very happy to fax to you. I haven't tried either of them but they may be worth a look!!

Lorrae

[RosalieM]

We use the carolina kits which i think come from southern biological. They are getting old but still worked ok. I'll be buying some replacement chemicals for next year though I think. It might be a significant initial set up cost but i think it lasts for quite some time.

[kimm]

Hi dolphin scales - we are currently collecting butter dishes, and batteries for electrophoresis the cheap way. I have a copy of the prac which i was going to attach but my computer is being obnoxious today. I am fairly sure there is a proceduce on the following website _www.brightminds.uq.edu.au - if not give me a whistle and i will send it to you.

good luck.
Kim

[dolphinscales]

thanks Kim - foudn the site and the information - looks easy -lol famous last words . Will gie it a go

Cheers

[Jen1]

Hi Dolphinscales (Annette)
Did you have a go at this prac? I tried it but it took over an hour to separate the colours from a mixed food colouring sample. I had to make a couple of modifications. I used small petri dishes so the amount of gel was not quite as deep and used a power pack on 12 volts which may not have been enough??
Would love to hear you went with this one.
Cheers
Jen

[kimm]

Hi Jen - - we haven't attempted the butter dish prac yet, but is on the cards for the near future. What sort of gel did you use - normal agar or agarose?? I have been told normal agar will work but will take alot longer - that is why we purchased the agarose (which is dearer) to speed things up.
I was going to try it with both and see.
Kim.

[Robbie]

Hi Kim or anyone else,

Can you tell me where you purchased the agarose? Agarose is supposed to be a far more refined form of agar and hence works a lot faster, but the price is probably horrifying...

The speed also depends a lot on the voltage used.

Robbie

[kimm]

Hey Robbie - you are right about the price - from memory we purchased about 50g from biotek for $100. We have been told to salvage every last crumb of agar after the prac and you can reuse. We keep talking about doing the prac but still it hasn't gone ahead. I bet the agarose will be past its use by date when we finally use it. Murphys Law.

[ELIZABETH]

Hi All,
I did this prac with bog-standard agar-agar and it worked an absolute treat. I used the 5 batteries and used M&M's as my colour source. Will get the kids to try it for Science Week demo maybe.
Liz

[Jen1]

Hi Kim,
yes I just used the standard agar. It took a long time for any separation of colour and it didn't separate very far. We decided to give it a miss as the kids would just say "that's boring!" and i tend to agree.
Jen

[Jazz]

Hi
I improvised ours electrophoresis kit using this site


http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/biotech/gel/