Assessment of corn starch as substitute for agarose in DNA gel electrophoresis

Abstract

Objective The use of agarose in nucleic acid electrophoresis is the gold standard. However, agarose is very expensive and not readily available in resource limited developing countries like Ghana. Hence, finding a more affordable and readily available alternative to agarose will be a major boost to molecular research in developing countries. This study was aimed at investigating the use of corn starch as a potential substitute for agarose in DNA gel electrophoresis. Results Genomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from Plasmodium falciparum and primers were obtained from the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens and amplified using polymerase chain reaction. The amplicon was run on agarose gel to ascertain the molecular weight (as a positive control). When visualized under both blue light and ultraviolet light, the DNA and ladder showed clear and clean bands with the expected molecular weight. Corn starch was then modified with sodium borate buffer, casted into a gel and used to run the same DNA sample. Our findings indicated that similar to agarose, the DNA sample and ladder migrated successfully through the modified starch gel but no bands were visible when visualized under blue and ultra-violet light.

Detection of antibiotics resistance andefflux pumps production in clinical Acinetobacter baumannii isolates

“…After the amplification process in thermocycler PCR apparatus, the products were run on(1.5 % agarose gel with 5µl of ethidium bromide) in 1x (TBE) buffer using DNA ladder (100-2000) bp (Bioneer, Korea ) at 100 voltsfor 15 minutes. The visualization of PCR products was made under 320 nm UV light using a UV trans illuminator (Djankpa et al, 2021).…”

Umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cell-GelMA microspheres for accelerated wound healing

“…5 ′ -AAGTGATGCGAGTCCAGAAGG-3 ′ ; Human AP5M1 Forward: 5 ′ -AGATTCTCCAGACGG TATCCAA-3 ′ , Human AP5M1 Reverse: 5 ′ -CACG ACTCTCAACGAAGTCTTTA-3 ′ . DNA agarose gel electrophoresis was performed for 60 min at 80 V with 0.9% agarose gel in a buffer containing trisacetate EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid) and 30 µl of DNA staining dye [29].…”