Fragile agarose (!!!)

[federico luciani]

Good morning ! I always found your suggestions so useful that this
time I've got TWO questions... I'll write them in a separate manner to
keep it clear, anyway :)

It's funny, but it seems my agarose gels are too much fragile, they
break very easily (they are 2% and 1% gels, made step by step
following the instructions)... could it be the agarose powder too old?
Many thanks !

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[Cory Tobin]

> It's funny, but it seems my agarose gels are too much fragile, they
> break very easily (they are 2% and 1% gels, made step by step
> following the instructions)... could it be the agarose powder too old?
> Many thanks !

That's just the way they are. If you drop them they break into
pieces. They are very slippery too. Gotta be careful.



-Cory

[federico luciani]

Thanks ! I asked because it compare them to gels made by another lab I
know... :)

[Cathal Garvey]

I sometimes use higher percentages, and even .5% extra can make a much firmer gel! At 2.5 and 1cm thick I've had some help that felt like rubber. It's not worth wasting agarose and time though, when a bit of careful handling is usually enough to make the most of a 1% gel. :)

On May 14, 2010 8:58 a.m., "federico luciani" <federicol...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks ! I asked because it compare them to gels made by another lab I
know... :)

On 14 Mag, 09:41, Cory Tobin <cory.to...@gmail.com> wrote: > > It's funny, but it seems my agarose ...

> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.

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[sgt york]

There are many types of agarose, and some (e.g., type III) form more
fragile gels than others (e.g., type I-B). Check the product
information sheet provided at the Sigma-Aldrich website, it's a pretty
good reference.

It's possible age of the powder would cause problems, but I've used 2
year old type-I agarose powder to make gels in the past. I didn't look
for it, but I didn't notice that the gels were more fragile.

Agarose gels (especially anything less than 1%) are fragile. You can
break them just by picking them up. As for making them higher
percentage; you may not want to do that, depending on what you're
looking for. If you are running genomic DNA, you can't use 2.5% gels;
the DNA will never get out of the well. Genomic DNA (even digested
genomic DNA) should usually be run on as low a concentration gel as
you can make, I usually used 0.8% for my Southerns.