How Agarose Gel Electrophoresis is performed?

Explanation

Agarose Gel Electrophoresis is used mainly for the purification of specific DNA fragments. Agarose is convenient for separating DNA fragments ranging in size from a few hundred to about 20000 base pairs. Polyacrylamide is preferred for the purification of smaller DNA fragments. The gel is complex network of polymeric molecules. DNA molecule is negatively charged molecule-under an electric field DNA molecule migrates through the gel. The electrophoresis is frequently performed with marker DNA fragments of Known size which allow accurate size determination of an unknown DNA molecule by interpolation. The advantages of agarose gel electrophoresis are that the DNA bands can be readily detected at high sensitivity. The bands of DNA in the gel are stained with the dye Ethidium Bromide and DNA can be detected as visible flurescence illuminated in UV light will give organe fluorescense, which can be photographed.