Upper Plate Assembly
Preparative Gel
Elution Chamber Core
Base Assembly*
*Filter papers and cellophane not shown
Rapid Recovery of Separated Proteins, DNA or RNA
Finding your biomolecule in a complex cell lysate can be a slow, challenging procedure. And recovering it in an active state can seem next to impossible. That's why whole gel elution is such a welcome addition to the big picture of preparative electrophoresis.
Whole gel eluting rapidly extracts all biomolecules from an entire preparative gel (SDS- or native PAGE). Individual bands or groups of closely spaced bands are collected in liquid fractions, quickly and easily making samples ready for subsequent analysis or bioassay.
Choose the Whole Gel Eluter That's Right for Your Application
Whole gel eluters accommodate a variety of gel sizes. The whole gel eluter is ideal for standard-size gels, 14 x 16 cm or larger. This provides the capacity necessary for loading milligram quantities of proteins. The mini whole gel eluter is perfect for rapidly studying smaller amounts of biomolecules in large or mini formats. Both hand-cast and precast mini gels fit the mini whole gel eluter. Fractions can be collected manually or with the optional vacuum assisted harvester.
Five Simple Steps to Preparative Elution:
Screening Biomolecules
The whole gel eluter can screen complex mixtures of proteins, DNA, or RNA in cellular assays. Eluted fractions are in nontoxic form, immediately available for in vivo or in vitro testing. As demonstrated in figures below, the whole gel eluter has been used for direct mapping of antigenic fractions from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Fractions that held T-cell antigens were identified, and single proteins from short term culture filtrates (ST-CF) were then purified. For more information, request bulletin #2043.
Purifying Biomolecules
When the biomolecule of interest is well resolved on a PAGE gel, it can be isolated by the whole gel eluter and made available in liquid form for antibody production, sequencing, or characterization studies.
Dave Armbruster from Ohio State University, Dept. of Microbiology, has isolated mature RNA (approximately 182 nucleotides) from preRNA and other total cellular components with the whole gel eluter. He loaded approximately 1 mg of total cellular RNA on an 8 M urea preparative 6% acrylamide gel, and then eluted the resolved bands in 1x TBE buffer. After analyzing 30 fractions on a northern blot, three fractions contained enough pure, mature RNA for RT-PCR, cloning, and sequencing.
The distance between biomolecules resolved on a PAGE gel must be greater than 5 mm for the mini whole gel eluter, and 6 mm for the Whole Gel Eluter to ensure the biomolecule of interest is eluted in its pure form without contamination from the neighboring bands.
For quick determinations, both eluters include a ruler indicating channel distances where specific bands will elute.
One Step in a Preparative Puzzle
Whole gel eluters are additional components to the expanding line of preparative electrophoresis products from Bio-Rad. They complement the Rotofor preparative isoelectric focusing devices, and the prep cell preparative electrophoresis instruments. With the Rotofor cells, extraneous proteins in complex samples can be removed prior to screening with the whole gel eluter. Once an active biomolecule has been identified with an eluter, it can be purified in larger quantities with a prep cell.
To put it simply, the whole gel eluter greatly increases the power and capabilities of vertical electrophoresis. Add one to your lab today.