The Mini-PROTEAN® 3 cell runs both hand-cast and precast gels. The Mini-PROTEAN® 3 system includes a casting stand and glass plates with permanently bonded gel spacers that simplify hand casting and eliminate leaking during casting. The cell can run one or two gels, and the mini tank is compatible with other Bio-Rad electrode modules for tank blotting, 2-D electrophoresis, and electro-elution.
The gel casting procedure is simple and fast to set up. Built-in spacers (both 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm are available) avoid the problem of spacer adjustment completely. All that needs to be done is to place one glass plate with the plate containing the spacer in a clamp and snap it shut to get a well-sealed assembly. These clamps are mounted on the casting frame which has rubber padding at the bottom to prevent leakage. Slots are provided on the mounting frame to keep APS, TEMED, SDS, etc. so that they are handy.
I have used these assemblies for the past 6 years for pouring and running native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), SDS-PAGE, and PAGE with urea denaturing gels. I have stopped using older assemblies where spacers and plates needed to be assembled and often leaked.
The Mini-PROTEAN® 3 assembly can be used for carrying out vertical electrophoresis. The lid of the running assembly is designed in such a way that the orientation of positive and negative terminals cannot be confused; the lid does not fit to the assembly in the wrong orientation. A single gel can be run by using a buffer dam on the other side of the unit. There is an adapter available that makes sample loading much easier. You don’t need to find transparent gels, just put in the adapter and start loading.
I recommend this assembly as a basic necessity for every lab doing protein work.