Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

for my bio project im doing a gel electrophoresis lab. my first question is who should i use as participants in this lab for best results? also, does it matter how long you keep a dna sample before actually conducting the experiment? can DNA go bad or would it have no affect on the experiment?

Hi,

Wlcome to Science Buddies.

Are you doing this project from the Science Buddies website? If so, it is a really great project.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

The actual project uses food colors to demonstrate the electrophoresis application. These are useful because they are visible in the agarose gel.

Real DNA samples are colorless, so require staining to make them visible, and this makes the project more complicated.

Please explain what you are trying to do and I’m sure we will have more advice. If you are not following the project guide, please let me know what type of gel box you are making. Please post again in this topic to continue the conversation.


Donna Hardy

Yes, i am using the site for this project, but i would like to use actual DNA for it. My biology teacher is supplying the stain for the DNA. i would like to have at least 3 DNA samples to compare in my project but my problem is i dont know how to get the best results. Who would be the ideal "suspects" to have?

Hello PCHS2016,

If I understand your post correctly, you are using a gel electrophoresis setup to compare several samples of DNA. There is a Science Buddies project that compares DNA from human cheek cells with DNA from a strawberry and you could probably adapt this isolation method for your project.

Here's the URL: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p042.shtml

If what you are thinking about is DNA 'fingerprinting', however, that is a bit more complicated. A DNA fingerprint identifies specific sequences and to do that you need 'probes' or primers that are specific for the DNA base sequences that you want to look at. For more information about this, please see this project: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p022.shtml

Let me know in more detail what your project is and I will try to help you accomplish it.

Thanks for using the Ask an Expert Forum!

SciB