Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

URGENT!!
Hi my due date is tomorrow and I really need to know how long after the run will the dyes and spread remain as it is - in a condition good enough to show at a science fair.

Putting your gel in the refrigerator will slow down the spreading of the bands, but be sure you take some good high-resolution photos. For permanent storage a gel can be dried. There are several ways to do this. You just have to pre-sale the gel in glycerin so that it doesn't crack. If you are interested in this I can give you more information on how to do it.

Good luck!

Sybee

Thank you SciB,

Yes please would be very grateful for that information.

You are certainly welcome. Let me repeat though that you should always take good photos of your results just in case. I have dropped and broken gels and had to try and piece them back together!

One thing I forgot to ask you was what kind of gel that you have. Was it an agarose gel for separating DNAs? If that is the case then drying it is difficult because it is relatively thick and would take probably a couple of weeks to dry. I was thinking of polyacrylamide gels for protein separation that can be dried in a couple of days.

Since you said it was due tomorrow I would just refrigerate the gel for now and tomorrow pack it with some ice blocks and take it with you. Wrap it well in plastic wrap so it can't break.

Did you measure the distance from the wells to the dye fronts? This is an important value in electrophoresis and is called the Rf value. Here's a video that explains how to calculate it: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... HQSNR-A6NQ

Good luck and please let us know how you made out with your gel.

Sybee