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AAT Bioquest

Is ethidium bromide a dye?

Posted November 10, 2021


Answer

Ethidium bromide is a dark red, fluorescent, non-radioactive, intercalating dye widely used for staining DNA in agarose gels. It is also excited by ultraviolet light and has UV absorbance maxima at 300 and 360 nm and an emission maximum at 590 nm.

Ethidium bromide fluoresces a red-orange color under UV light and with increased 20 -25 increased brightness when bound to double-stranded DNA.

Additional resources

Ethidium bromide as a marker of mtDNA replication in living cells

Helixyte™ Green Fluorimetric Total Nucleic Acid Quantitation Kit *Optimized for Microplate Readers*