Gel Electrophoresis

Gel Electrophoresis Lab

Vials of DNA.

Intro:

In this lab, we were able to complete gel electrophoresis! In order to do this, we had to make our own agarose gel, fill the wells and different dyes and finally electrophoresis the gel to gather the data that we needed to complete the experiment. Gel electrophoresis tells how big the DNA fragment is and where the restriction enzymes cut open the plasmid. Down below will be a better explanation of our lab process :)

Like a giant pool of gel bathing... but with electricity.

Procedure:

 Throughout this lab, there was a lot of hand shivering, especially when trying to carefully place the DNA substance inside of the Gel wells. What we basically had to do was prep the gels for the electrophoresis part. Doing this by carefully taking a micro pipet and placing the liquids into wells. It was quite difficult because it was very easy to blow away all of the DNA if we had let out the DNA too fast. For the 1st well, we had the Lambda DNA - in order to help us determine how long the base pairs were of the DNA we were testing for. 

The DNA placing begins!

The next well, we left it blank to easily compare lines. 3rd well we places the DNA that contained the restriction enzyme "PstI" - the 4th well we placed the DNA that had the restriction enzymes "PstI" and "HpaI" - for the 5th well we had "PstI" and "SspI" - for the last well we had all three restriction enzymes. After placing the DNA in their respected wells, we turned on the electrophoresis and let the DNA run.

Analysis: 

Using all the data from out gel, we could actually be able to draw out the plasmid and figure out where the restriction enzymes were.

Reason why is because each band represents a cut that the restriction enzyme made. The more enzymes we put in the more cuts we got and the more bands we saw. Also, being able to measure each band using our maker lane helped us determine how long each band was in terms of base pair size. 

Conclusion:

 This lab, for us, felt like a lab that real scientists would preform. This is something forensic scientists and DNA analysts do everyday. Also, for our group specifically, we feel achieved the best results. At least the most clear and accurate results. Below is the final picture of our gel. The bands stopped there because that is how fast they could travel within the amount of time we let it run in correlation to how large the DNA was. Each band represents an amount of base pairs. And so for the bands closer to the top represent the slower/longer DNA pieces. Opposite for the ones on the bottom. Also, the reason for the amount of bands is because we got to see where each restriction enzyme cut and how long each piece cut was. We enjoyed this lab very much.

Our final results.