Expired pre-cast gels - (Jan/04/2010 )
Hello,
we have a large number of precast gels that have expired. I can't help but wonder how a gel can expire. Do any of you have experience with old gels? Any reduced performance, abnormalities, etc?
Jens Madsen on Jan 4 2010, 03:41 AM said:
we have a large number of precast gels that have expired. I can't help but wonder how a gel can expire. Do any of you have experience with old gels? Any reduced performance, abnormalities, etc?
I used some Bio-Rad Criterion gels that were a couple months past expiration. The resolution was terrible compared to new gels with the same protein sample loaded.
how long ago did they expire?
i've used expired precast ief gels and they have worked reasonably well after about a year.
you need watch for drying, mold growth, components that tend to decompose and/or any other aberration in the gel.
also, if they are too far out-of-date then you may want to use them only for quick screenings.
you can determine if they are still useful by running one or two with less precious samples.
I have used biorad redygels over a year past there useby for DNA anaylsis and they have worked fine.
I have also used biorad and GE IPG strips for 2D protein work that were a year past there useby dat and they worked fine as well.
My experience is the same as the others; however, I have found that the expired ready gels will sometimes pull away from the glass after a while and float into the top buffer chamber. To avoid this, I set up my gel and let it sit in the running buffer for 10-15 minutes before I load it to make sure the gel will stay put.