Southern transfer towels - (Mar/15/2006 )

Hello all,

I am doing a Southern transfer from a gel that is 9.5cm x 11.5 cm. When using paper towels for stacking, instead of cutting it to the exact size, I folded each towel into 3 parts so that the final area is about 10cm x 12cm. Someone noticed this and felt that the folded edges of the towels may result in uneven transfer of the DNA, due to differential absorption of the buffer through the edges of the folds (that are thicker); his strong suggestion was to cut the paper towels to the exact size rather than to fold them. I am not quite convinced that this would affect the transfer significantly. Can someone help me understand better? Thanks.

hi
i had the same question. in orde to avoid these problems, i cut paper little bigger thatn gel, to ensure that the fold is not lying on the gel but just next. Hence, it's exactly as if you would have cutted the paper in several sheets.