Nucleic Acid Electrophoresis

Nucleic acid electrophoresis is the primary and most reliable molecular biology method for deciphering the content of DNA or RNA samples by size separation. The best practice used to tackle this method is to build and work off of a reliable system, which includes equipment, reagents, and visualization tools. Nucleic acid electrophoresis is optimized by type and percentage of agarose, type of buffer, and the type of instrument system used. One can choose a horizontal electrophoresis system for general size and content determination or a capillary electrophoresis instrument if genetic information is desired. Numerous easy to prepare size ladders, also called markers or standards, are available to measure the size of DNA or RNA fragments. The detection and analysis of isolated nucleic acid products by specific stains, such as UV activated Ethidium Bromide or fluorescent SYBRGreen®, is combined with gel documentation and imaging systems. Several gel purification kits are employed to obtain the highest quality and specific fragment of electrophoresed nucleic acid.