Selection guide for electrophoresis experiment buffer: Desheng New Materials provides you with multi-dimensional analysis
Release time:
2025-07-17
The key role of buffer in electrophoresis technology
In molecular biology laboratories, electrophoresis technology is the cornerstone of separating and analyzing DNA, RNA, and proteins. The success of this technology largely relies on a key factor that is often overlooked - the choice of buffer solution. Buffer solution not only maintains pH stability in the electrophoresis system, but also directly affects the migration rate, separation efficiency, and reproducibility of experimental results of biomolecules.
Conventional nucleic acid electrophoresis: comparison of TAE and TBE buffer solutions
For routine DNA electrophoresis, the laboratory commonly uses two buffer systems, TAE and TBE.
TAE buffer is particularly suitable for the separation of large DNA fragments (>12kb) due to its low ionic strength, providing clearer band resolution. Meanwhile, TAE buffer has better compatibility with subsequent DNA recovery experiments and will not interfere with enzyme cleavage reactions like boric acid. However, the buffer capacity of TAE is relatively small, and pH drift may occur during long-term electrophoresis.
TBE buffer is the preferred choice for small fragment DNA separation and long-term electrophoresis due to its strong buffering capacity. The presence of boric acid can also improve the stability of DNA in gel and reduce the band diffusion phenomenon. However, it should be noted that high concentrations of boric acid may affect certain downstream applications, such as DNA sequencing reactions.
Special considerations for RNA electrophoresis and MOPS buffer
RNA electrophoresis faces greater technical challenges than DNA, mainly because RNA molecules are prone to forming secondary structures and are highly sensitive to alkaline environments. Traditional Tris based buffer may cause an increase in pH during RNA electrophoresis, leading to RNA hydrolysis. MOPS buffer can maintain stability over a wide pH range (pH 6.5-7.9), making it particularly suitable for RNA electrophoresis systems containing denaturing agents such as formaldehyde. It can not only maintain an appropriate pH environment, but also help RNA maintain a linear state, ensuring the accuracy of electrophoresis results.
Guidelines for selecting buffer solutions for protein electrophoresis
Protein electrophoresis requires the selection of different buffer systems according to different experimental purposes. Traditional SDS-PAGE uses a Tris glycine buffer system, which can form a pH gradient during electrophoresis and achieve protein separation by molecular weight. For non denaturing electrophoresis that requires maintaining the natural state of proteins, Tris acetic acid or Tris boric acid buffer is often used. These buffers can maintain a pH environment close to physiological conditions, preserve the natural conformation and biological activity of proteins.
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Desheng New Materials: Your professional electrophoretic buffer partner
In every step of the electrophoresis experiment, the quality of the buffer directly affects the reliability of the results. As a professional supplier of biological buffering agents, Desheng New Materials ensures strict quality control of all buffer raw materials. Our products have minimal batch differences, and we provide flexible packaging ranging from grams to tons to meet the needs of laboratories of different scales.
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