Re: [DIYbio] Any ideas on edible electrophoresis buffers?

I'd say agarose and alcohol work well together, although it might affect
migration of certain dyes etc?

Gelatin can be used for a gel but expect poorer bands I'd say. Collagen
is a protein with inhomogenous side-chain structure, whereas even impure
agar is largely only two polysaccharides; far less complicated, more
compact gel structure. Ideally, agarose will give you good gels and
should be edible.

I don't think sugar will affect electrophoresis, and it's not charged,
so it'd probably remain as-is. Enough sugar will reliably make your gel
buffer more viscuous though, so perhaps it'll make migration slower.
Also, enough sugar might somehow interact with gel formation due to
pi-bonding (is benzene-stacking pi-bonding? Can't recall..), would be
interested to hear if you see any serious qualitative differences
between sucrose gels and normal gels.

Olive juice? Is that well buffered?

Also Simon, as you seem to know more: what sort of buffering
range/capacity do you get out of citric acid/bicarbonate like lemon and
sodium bicarb? I've long been looking into a domestic crude replacement
for tris, are there any carbonate-based buffer combinations that you can
knock up easily in this range (~8 -> ~11)?

On 01/11/12 18:00, Patrik D'haeseleer wrote:
> I'm not even planning to run any DNA - probably just food dyes by
> themselves, since that seems to work fairly well.
>
> Good to hear the reassurances on using table salt. I may aim for something
> like a dirty martini jello shot, where the salty tang wouldn't really
> detract from the experience - heck, olive juice is probably worth trying as
> a buffer by itself! But frankly alcohol and taste are optional for our
> first try. I'd be happy with an edible gel with some visible band. Having
> it actually taste and look great and carry enough alcohol to sway the
> judges would be a bonus ;-)
>
> Any guesses on how well gelatin works as an electrophoresis gel, how much
> alcohol you might be able to dissolve in an agarose gel, or how alcohol and
> sugar in the gel might affect electrophoresis?
>
> Patrik
>
> On Thursday, November 1, 2012 4:57:08 AM UTC-7, Cathal wrote:
>>
>> Table salt is probably OK: you'd get chlorine gas, yes, but that's all
>> they add to tap water and it boils off pretty quickly. Besides, if
>> you're talking about eating the gel, the chlorine will get produced at
>> one of the terminals; it shouldn't make it to the gel in any worrying
>> quantity.
>>
>> As for dyes, I encountered a paywalled paper suggesting that the primary
>> dye in turmeric (the name of which I have forgotten) worked as an
>> acceptable co-stain with an artificial counterion, but the counterion
>> wasn't edible. However, some quick hacking might find a suitably edible
>> counterion.
>>
>> Of course, methylene blue is edible; there are some minor concerns about
>> carcinogenicity, but I get the impression that it's very minor; possibly
>> less significant than eating burnt toast. So if you stain and destain
>> properly, the Methylene Blue will be minimal and you'll get visible
>> bands if you use enough DNA.
>>
>> Agarose itself is perfectly edible of course, and you don't need EDTA,
>> nor do you really need much buffering if it's just for culinary delight.
>> So, just enough salt to permit conduction, otherwise perhaps just water,
>> DNA and food-grade bromophenol blue/glycerol loading dye.
>>
>> You may want to destain with something flavoursome to imbue a taste
>> other than bland salty gel. So, after running DNA, destain in salt-free
>> water first, then salt-free solution containing plenty of sweetener and
>> flavouring?
>>
>> On 01/11/12 07:53, Patrik D'haeseleer wrote:
>>> So I got the idea of trying some jello shot electrophoresis for Science
>>> Hack Day <http://sf.sciencehackday.com/> this year. We won the judge's
>>> prize last year with a drinkable DNA extraction<
>> http://www.instructables.com/id/DNAquiri-the-delicious-DNA-extraction/>protocol,
>> and this is my very transparent attempt at bribing the judges
>>> with booze (and a little science) again this year...
>>>
>>> Turns out you can get some really nice results with food colors on a gel<
>> http://peer.tamu.edu/curriculum_modules/cell_Biology/Module_4/Electrophoresis%20on%20Agarose%20Gel%20-%20Student.ppt>.
>>
>>> And of course regular agarose or agar gel is edible. Problem is that
>> damn
>>> Tris-borate EDTA buffer... First thing I thought of was to just replace
>> the
>>> buffer with table salt, but that would likely just give you a lot of
>>> electrolysis, and Chlorine!
>>>
>>> So... any idea what kinds of salts might be worth trying? Needs to be
>>> edible (of course), produce a well conducting solution, and not prone to
>>> producing toxic compounds by electrolysis.
>>>
>>> I'm not looking for anything laboratory quality, mind you. Just looking
>> for
>>> something that will allow me to electrophorese some bands of food
>> coloring
>>> into a slab of agar, while still staying edible...
>>>
>>
>> --
>> www.indiebiotech.com
>> twitter.com/onetruecathal
>> joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
>> PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey
>>
>

--
www.indiebiotech.com
twitter.com/onetruecathal
joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey

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