We’re all used to carefully weighing out the correct mass of agarose in order to make our gels for electrophoresis. But, what if you’re in a hurry and you want to make a gel as fast as possible? Enter, agarose tablets! These convenient, individually wrapped tablets each contain 0.5 g of agarose, so all you have to do is pop them out, microwave, and you are ready to go! This is key for saving time if you are not preparing gels for your class in bulk, or if you have a big class and only one scale.
A few helpful hints:
- Let the tablet sit in buffer for about two minutes before heating; we find this helps the tablet melt more easily.
- if you don’t have a scale, its nice that they are pre-weighed so that all you need to do is measure the buffer.
- We have found the tablets melt better with TAE vs TBE buffer, but don’t let this discourage you! Just let the tablet sit in the buffer a little longer.
- Do you use SYBR Safe in your gels? Not a problem! Just add the DNA stain to your melted agarose as you normally do!
- The tablets are compatible with all of our electrophoresis systems. For a 7×7 cm tray, you need 30 mL of agarose solution. For a 10×7 tray, or the EDGE, you need 45 mL of agarose solution. For a 14×7 tray, you need 60 mL of agarose. Below is a table to help you figure out how much buffer and how many tablets you need to prepare enough agarose for your electrophoresis tray.
Interested in trying out the agarose tablets? They’re available on the Edvotek website right now! Make sure to add some to your next order and let us know what you think!
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