Consort E3100, Manual

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E3xxx E3xxx
Gel staining and viewing Gel staining and viewing
All trays and the E3100 unit allow staining to be performed with-
out removing the gel from the tray if this is preferred.
1
. Transfer the gel to a vessel containing the appropriate vol-
ume of 0.5 µg/ml ethidium bromide stain for 15...30 minutes,
see solutions for stock stain concentration and adjust to the
volume used accordingly. The entire gel should be covered.
(Caution: ethidium bromide is a suspected carcinogen and the
necessary safety precautions should be undertaken).
2 . De-stain the gel for 10–30 minutes in distilled water again
ensuring the gel is completely immersed.
3 . Rinse the gel twice for a couple of seconds with distilled wa-
ter.
4
. Transfer the gel to a UV Transilluminator.
5
. The samples will often appear as brighter, clearer bands when
photographed or viewed using a gel documentation system.
However if the gel bands are too faint then the staining pro-
cedure should be adjusted so that there is less de-staining.
If there is too much background then the staining procedure
should be adjusted so that there is more de-staining.
Running the gel Running the gel
1
. Mix the sample to be loaded with sample buffer (see solutions
for common sample buffers). Usually 3 µl of sample buffer is
adequate but less may be used with sample volumes of less
than 10 µl.
2 . Fill the unit with buffer until the gel is just flooded with buff-
er. This will give the fastest resolution times. For enhanced
quality of resolution of sample, fill the unit to 5 mm above
the gel.
3 . Load the samples into the wells using pipettes. Multi-channel
pipettes can be used for loading samples with MultiPipette
compatible combs, see listing in accessories for identification
of these.
4
. Carefully place the lid on the tank and connect to a power
supply.
5
. Typically gels are run at between 90 and 150 V. However,
maximum voltage is indicated on the serial badge of each
unit. It should be noted that a higher voltage generally give
faster but poorer quality sample resolution.