6Mgel
Principle
Rapid
water cooling electrophoresis
US
Patent 5,549,806
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6Mgel
- Rapid electrophoresis in 6 minutes
1x
running buffer, a
highly conductive liquid, has two functions in
conventional submarine agarose gel electrophoresis: keeping the agarose gel cooled
and conducting electric current.
To
avoid gel overheating, the volume of running buffer should be as
large as possible. But more buffer conducts more electric current, which generates more
heat. So buffer volume should be as small as
possible. Which is correct - more buffer or less buffer?
The
principle of the 6Mgel invention
The
inventor of 6mgel recognized that water is the best and cheapest
coolant. The electrical resistance of lab dd-water is 18MΩ,
which means that dd-water is an excellent electrical
insulator. By simply adding dd-water directly on top of the
buffer-containing agarose gel, the desired effects are achieved:
gels
can be run much faster! You can add a large volume of
dd-water to dissipate heat so that a much higher voltage can be
applied to drive faster migration of DNA molecules. Band "smiling" is eliminated because
the large volume of dd-water in direct contact with the gel
maintains even heat distribution. Also, sharper banding occurs
due to "stacking effects of dd-water in gel wells.
In
6Mgel, the V/cm in wells is elevated about 3-fold higher than in
the gel body, which drives DNA 3 times faster in wells than in
the gel body, resulting in sharper bands. Furthermore,
consumption of running buffer can be reduced by 50-75%.
During
the development of 6Mgel, more and more features were
added, such as buffer-less high speed electrophoresis, lab-made
precast gels for high-speed electrophoresis, and agarose-saving
gel systems.
See User Feedback about the performance of buffer-less high speed electrophoresis:
" The
Liberty
bufferless gel system is the best gel electrophoresis system we've ever
used. It's not only easy to set up, robust, and fast, but generates
excellent results without the need of running buffer. Highly
recommended. See our genotyping service picture below." ---- Ivan Delgado Orlic, President and CEO,
Mouse
Genotype Co.
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