Sigma-Aldrich 05066-50G Agarose High EEO for Molecular Biology, 50G

Application

Agarose is used for preparative and analytical separation of nucleic acids. It can be used for single cell gel electrophoresis assay. It can also be used for southern blotting. It can also be used for assessing transepithelial ionic fluxes from cultured neonatal rat semicircular canal epithelium.

Biochem/physiol Actions

Agarose is a polysaccharide used for resolving DNA and RNA fragments from 500 - 20,000 bp. It provides strong gel structure which assists in better handling and less breakage. It can also reexpress the differentiated collagen phenotype from dedifferentiated chondrocytes during agarose gel culture

Analysis Note

The following is a list of properties associated with agaroses:

• Sulfate content - used as an indicator of purity, since sulfate is the major ionic group present.
• Gel strength - the force that must be applied to a gel to cause it to fracture.
• Gel point - the temperature at which an aqueous agarose solution forms a gel as it cools. Agarose solutions exhibit hysteresis in the liquid-to-gel transition - that is, their gel point is not the same as their melting temperature.
• Electroendosmosis (EEO) - a movement of liquid through the gel. Anionic groups in an agarose gel are affixed to the matrix and cannot move, but dissociable counter cations can migrate toward the cathode in the matrix, giving rise to EEO. Since electrophoretic movement of biopolymers is usually toward the anode, EEO can disrupt separations because of internal convection.