Products - Microarray Instruments - MicroGel Electrophoresis

Our MicroGel system provides a novel, rapid, high-resolution gels that can be run on SuperClean Substrates and imaged with ArrayIt® microarray scanners or read by traditional methods. Shown here is a MicroGel electrophoresis box with 25 x 75 mm gel and a 10 lane comb, an excellent alternative to traditional electrophoresis approaches.

Downloadable Files:
To download a MicroGel powerpoint presentation titled: “Validation of microgel technology to control for variation in coupling of fluorescent dyes to cDNAs for microarray expression studies” please click here.

To download a PDF file of “MICROGEL ELECTROPHORESIS: A novel approach for Rapid and efficient DNA analysys.” please click here.

Introduction
Congratulations on taking a big step towards improving the economies of scale, quality and speed of your genomics research. This booklet contains a complete set of protocols outlining the steps and principles needed to use the MicroGel Electrophoresis System.

Product Description
MicroGel is a novel, rapid, high-resolution gel run on a SuperClean Substrate for best results or on a glass microscope slide.  MicroGels can be detected on a microarray scanner such as SpotLight or others such as those made by Axon, PerkinElmer, BioRad and others. MicroGels can also be read by traditional methods. The gel runs in less than 4 minutes and utilizes our membrane comb sample injection technology. Pour gel into cassette (or order pre-cast gels), spot samples onto membrane combs (as little as 0.3 µl), insert combs into cassette and run gel for 4 minutes. Gels can be imaged in any microarray scanner or by traditional methods.

Figure 2. MicroGel Accessories.

About the gels: To cast gel, warm the unfilled cassette for 10 seconds at 60 ºC on a heating block. Using a P1000, fill the cassette with approximately 400µL agarose until the cassette is filled. Insert casting comb and let the gel solidify about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove casting comb carefully to avoid tearing the gel or breaking the coverslip. The gel will start to dehydrate quickly, so if you need to store for more than 15 minutes before running gel, keep buffer on top of gel and store at 4ºC. Wipe the combside of gel with a kimwipe to remove excess liquid and agarose. Depending on the fragments you are separating, you will most likely need either a 1% or 2% high quality agarose gel for this system. The gel should be made in 1/2X TBE buffer. Generally, 1% agarosegel is best for fragments above 500bp, and 2% agarose is best for fragments below 500bp.

Loading samples: To load samples, pipette samples onto bottom edge of comb teeth. Typical load volumes are 0.3µl to 0.7µl, depending on detection methods used. Note: Due to the high sensitivity of ultrathin gels, you will need to make a 1:20 dilution of what you would normally load on a 6mm thick agarose gel. For the first run it may make sense to run a dilution series to find the best concentration to use. After samples are loaded onto comb, insert comb into cassette until the teeth just reach surface of the gel. You may want to practice loading an empty comb into an empty cassette a few times to get the “feel” of inserting the membrane into the cassette. After you are comfortable with this approach you can use real samples and real gels.

Gel running: Place the cassette with comb into the gel unit. Make sure the orientation is correct so the comb is nearest the black electrode. Add running buffer (1/2X TBE) until the buffer starts to cover the cassette on both sides. Caution: Do not add too much buffer, if you do the DNA will not electrophorese properly. Connect unit to power supply and run at 400V for about 4 minutes, or until you see the leading dye front approach the end of the gel.

Detection: There are several methods for detecting DNA in MicroGels. The cassettes are optically clear and UV transparent, either fluorescent labeling or general staining may be used. In addition, DNA samples may be mixed with SyBrGold (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) before loading samples onto gel. Sample and stain mixing may yield less background as compared to a stain, which is present throughout gel. The cassettes themselves will fit in microarray scanners such as SpotLight or others such as those made by Axon, PerkinElmer, BioRad and others. Additionally MicroGels can be placed onto UV light boxes for photography purposes.

Care: After use, rinse the MicroGel unit in distilled water and let dry. Store unused membrane combs in original packaging and place them in a drawer where they will be protected from light and excess heat. The casting combs may be rinsed with water, making sure all dries bits of agarose are removed, and then allowed to dry. The casting combs can be reused indefinitely.

Technical Assistance
Please contact us if you have any comments, suggestions, or if you need technical assistance. By electronic mail: arrayit@arrayit.com (under the subject heading, please type ArrayIt® technical assistance). By telephone: (408) 744-1331, Monday–Friday PST 9:00am - 4:30pm. Please remember that we want to hear about your successes!

Figure 3. MicroGel image.

Figure 4. Two-color image of co-electrophoresed PCR products (green) and sizing DNA ladder standards (red). Samples and ladder were mixed on the loading membrane tabs. Conditions: 1% Agarose III + 2% LPA in 0.5x TBE gel; Separation: 500 V for 3 min. Image Kindly Provided by Marina Berdichevsky, Julia Khandurina and András Guttman Torrey Mesa Research Institute, 3115 Merryfield Row, San Diego, CA 92121.

Ordering Information

Catalog ID	Description	Price (US dollars)*
GNC60-25	Cassettes, unfilled. Quantity of 25	$86
GNC60-100	Cassettes, unfilled. Quantity of 100	$319
GAG2-10	Cassettes, 2 percent agarose, 0.5X TBE. Quantity of 10	$57.20
GAG3-10	Cassettes, 6 percent polyacrylamide, 0.5X TBE. Quantity of 10	$63.80
CNJ-06	6 lane membrane combs, 10 combs per pack	$22
CNJ-08	8 lane membrane combs, 10 combs per pack	$22
CNJ-10	10 lane membrane combs, 10 combs per pack	$22
CNJ-12	12 lane membrane combs, 10 combs per pack	$22
CNF-063	casting comb, 6.3mm depth, quantity 2	$13.20
GNU-1	Single place gel unit for 1 casette	$273.90
MRK48	400µl FAM labelled 48mer in load buffer	$86.90
MRK50	400µl TAMRA labelled 50mer in load buffer	$86.90
GNK-1	MicroGel box unit,10 cassettes,10 membrane combs,2 casting combs	$394.90

*Shipping via federal express or US Postal Service Priority Mail. *To order ArrayIt® brand products call 408-744-1331, fax 408-744-1711, email arrayit@arrayit.com or click on the button below to proceed directly to the purchase page. *International pricing may vary as much as 30% (or more depending on country) due to import duties, stocking fees and technical support. *Plus shipping and handling.     Copyright 1993-2008 TeleChem International, Inc. All rights reserved.