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What is the function of electrophoresis buffer?
Posted June 1, 2020
Answer
Buffers in gel electrophoresis are used to
- Provide ions that are necessary for the passage of electricity
- Maintain the pH at a relatively constant value to make the structure and charge of a protein or nucleic acid stable
- Chelate metal ions to prevent DNA from degradation by DNases in the case of DNA gel electrophoresis where EDTA is added in the running buffer
Additional resources
Gelite™ Green Nucleic Acid Gel Staining KitLee, P. Y., Costumbrado, J., Hsu, C. Y., & Kim, Y. H. (2012). Agarose gel electrophoresis for the separation of DNA fragments. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), (62), e3923.Sambrook, J., & Russell, D. W. (2006). SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of proteins. CSH Protoc, 2006(4), pdb-prot4540.