Shot In The Arm

LabConsumer takes Gel-O Shooters Heat & Pour Agarose Gels on a test drive It was one of those days. The autoclave repairman had shown up early and the facility manager was out. Not an unusual occurrence, but it was not the best day for it. I just had to get an agarose gel in before my pending lunchtime meeting. What to do? I thought about using a precast agarose gel, but I had more samples than precast wells and everything had to run on one gel. Casting my own gel was an option, but I needed every minute I could spare. The answer, as it turned out, was there on my bench top. That package of Gel-O ShootersTM Heat & Pour Agarose Gels I had recently received from Continental Lab Products (CLP) of San Diego beckoned. It was time to give one a test drive. I pulled one of the plastic cups containing 50 ml of solidified, 1% High Melt/Medium Fragment agarose in 1x TAE buffer off the Gel-O ShooterTM six pack, peeled back the lid slightly, and heated the cup in a microwave oven for 30 seconds. Next, I swirled the cup to mix the partially melted agarose and then finished melting it in another 20 seconds. After allowing the agarose to cool for a couple of minutes, I poured my gel. Once it had hardened, I ran my samples and stained and photographed a beautiful gel. I made my meeting with about five minutes to spare, impressed with both the quality of my gel and the convenience offered by Gel-O Shooters. According to Continental Lab Products, each Gel-O Shooter cup contains a unique, preformulated, optimally hydrated agarose. The combination of the optimal hydration and quick remelting process produces the most consistent, high performance gel matrices available. Five types of agarose with different melting point and fragment resolution characteristics constitute the Gel-O Shooter arsenal. The array of available concentrations includes 0.8, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0% in either TAE or TBE buffer. These resolve DNA fragments ranging from 10 to 25,000 base pairs in size; specific resolution ranges include 100-23K bp, 10-1000 bp, 50-25K bp, and 100-1000 bp. All five types are sold in twelve packs of 50 ml mini-gel sized cups, with the High Melt/Medium Fragment agarose also available in a 300 ml size. Prices range from $18 per pack for the 0.8% or 1.0% High Melt/Medium Fragment agarose Shooters to $102 per pack for the 4% Low Melt/Small Fragment agarose Shooters. Gel-O Shooters are stable for several months at room temperature and for at least two years when stored at 4°C. They are easily combined to produce larger volumes for bigger gels. Simply prepare a couple of shots. Likewise, Gel-O Shooters are readily diluted to form agarose gels in concentrations other than the available percentages. For added convenience, look for CLP to introduce its new 300 ml size Magnum Shooter soon. Researchers who prefer to cast agarose gels with ethidium bromide in the matrix should try CLP's nifty ethidium bromide dropper bottle. One drop of the ethidium bromide solution contained in the dropper bottle, when deposited into a 50 ml Gel-O Shooter, produces a 0.5 µg/ml ethidium bromide solution. David White, president of Continental Lab Products, likens Gel-O Shooters to racked pipet tips. "Ten years ago," he says, "everybody bought pipet tips in bulk. Now, hardly anybody does. We believe that Gel-O Shooters will have the same fate when it comes to casting agarose gels." "I believe he's right." Contact Continental Lab Products at 800-456-7741 or by email at mail@conlab.com. Michael Brush is an Associate Scientist at Hitachi Chemical Co. in Irvine, Calif. He can be reached at mdbrush@compuserve.com.

Shot In The Arm

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