Agarose gel solidifying - from asia-poland (Jul/18/2007 )

Hello,
I have a question: do the properties of my agarose gel change if I accelerate solidifying the gel in the fridge? (it takes less time). I suppose that the pores size is smaller when the gel hardens at low temperature and it can change my quality of latter resolution.
Thanks for sharing with your experiences
Asia-Poland

i have done this before.
Well i wait for gel solidification for 15' and then put it in a fridge (sealed box to keep fumes).
You may put your bottle containing dissolved agarose few minutes in ice to cool it and then pour the gel

there is an effect on DNA running, but as long as the cooling is even, you won't notice any difference.

don't u think it's gonna be more stiff!!

Perhaps it is, I just never noticed. I've never experience problems using agarose gels cooled in refrigerators or casted in cold rooms.

But I have notice what happens when the gel cools uneventlty. The bands don't run evenly

I once use ice to cool my gel, unfortunately the crushed ice that I used was very coarse and didn't contact and hence cool the gel caster evently. If the ice makes a smoother, firmer contact with the caster then the problem goes away.

Thus I believe, as long as the cooling is approximately even, there won't any noticible problems.

I oftenput my agarose solution in the fridge
electrophoresis was always ok

Seb

Sometime I leave the gel in the fridge or the cold room to cool it. I havnt noticed much difference in the running as the gel gets back to the temp. since its being run in RT for a long time.

For important gels, I let the gel polymerize by itself. Its for stuff that the PI wants that I cool the gel faster.