Gel Electrophoresis

[Sahmed]

Hi, Im an eight grade student.

I was wondering what kind of samples I could use when I conduct my experiment of gel electrophoresis. I know food coloring is a big one and I am also doing crushed up leaves mixed with nail polish remover... but I was wondering if I could get one more idea.

Thank you very much for your time in reading this message.

[deleted-71417]

Hi,

You could try a couple of blueberries, blackberries or strawberries crushed with alcohol(rubbing alcohol, denatured ethanol, or methyl alcohol).

Have fun!

Barrett Tomlinson

[deleted-71487]

One of the most common uses of gel electrophoresis is characterization of DNA fragments (typically by size). You'd probably get a better answer on this particular aspect of it from the biology forums, but a pretty good description can be found on Wikipedia (not a good research source, but a good place to do preliminary surveys and *find* primary sources you can quote in your project): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agarose_ge ... rophoresis

All sorts of interesting experiments could be run using this technique... I barely remember doing this when I was a kid, though, so as I said you'd be better off asking the biology forum if you're going in this direction.