Assessment of corn starch as substitute for agarose in DNA gel electrophoresis

BMC Research Notes

Korantema Mawuena Tsegah¹  Gideon Akuamoah Wiafe¹  Abdala Mumuni Ussif²  Mark Bilinyi Ulanja³  Bernard Ntim Boateng⁴  Samuel Essien-Baidoo⁴  Gabriel Asante⁵  Francis Tanam Djankpa⁵  Desmond Owusu Agyeman⁵  Kwame Ofori Affram⁶ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana;Department of Forensic Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana;Department of Internal Medicine, University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, 1155 Mill St, 89502, Reno, NV, USA;Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana;Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana;Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center, Graduate Medical Education, Athens, GA, USA;

关键词: Electrophoresis;    Gel;    DNA;    Corn;    Starch;    Agarose;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13104-021-05483-1

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

ObjectiveThe use of agarose in nucleic acid electrophoresis is the gold standard. However, agarose is very expensive and not readily available in resource limited developing countries like Ghana. Hence, finding a more affordable and readily available alternative to agarose will be a major boost to molecular research in developing countries. This study was aimed at investigating the use of corn starch as a potential substitute for agarose in DNA gel electrophoresis.ResultsGenomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from Plasmodium falciparum and primers were obtained from the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens and amplified using polymerase chain reaction. The amplicon was run on agarose gel to ascertain the molecular weight (as a positive control). When visualized under both blue light and ultraviolet light, the DNA and ladder showed clear and clean bands with the expected molecular weight. Corn starch was then modified with sodium borate buffer, casted into a gel and used to run the same DNA sample. Our findings indicated that similar to agarose, the DNA sample and ladder migrated successfully through the modified starch gel but no bands were visible when visualized under blue and ultra-violet light.

【 授权许可】

CC BY