Pregnant - using Ethidium Bromide & UV for gel extraction - (Jun/04/2021 )

Hi everyone, I'm pregnant and need to do a lot of cloning in the next few weeks, which is not something I regularly do.

I have just digested and dephosphorylated a pLentiCrisprV2 plasmid and need to purify from insert. Most people recommend extracting your plasmid by gel extraction but I am worried about exposure to Ethidium bromide in the agarose gel and then using UV to find my band. I dont do this very frequently so wanted to ask if there's an alternative option to purify my plasmid using a kit someone can recommend since I'm pregant?

Is it ok to just not purify the digested plasmid at all and proceed to ligation of my guide insert? How dangerous is EtBr and UV light for the unborn baby?

Any advice would be appeciated.

UVI should have no effect on the baby, only on your skin and eyes. Ethidium bromide should be safe if you use proper handling techniques. If you search the archives of bioforum, you’ll find some discussions regarding the safety of EtBr.

see this thread: http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/topic/6685-alternative-to-ethidium-bromide/?p=17698

and the links in my post