Gel leaks (was Salt Gradient Gels)

[Cornelius Krasel]

We don't seal our sequence gels at all. We use a Pharmacia
apparatus to cast 0.2 mm thin gels, but it should be possible
to do without it. And this is the way it works:

1) Lay one of the two plates perfectly flat. The plate should
   not be able to slide around (Pharmacia uses rubber stripes
   to prevent this).
2) Clamp the left and right spacers to this plate. There must
   be enough place for the other plate to fit inbetween the
   clamps.
3) Lay the other plate on the bottom of the first one. Elevate
   the top of the first plate a bit.
4) Now pour the acrylamide mix just before the top of the
   second plate while pushing it gently towards the top of
   the first. Avoid capturing air bubbles.
5) When you have arrived at the top of the first plate, there
   is usually air between the lower parts of the plates. You
   get this air out by elevating the top of the plates and
   pouring some acrylamide on there. The acrylamide flows
   down between the plates and pushes the air out.
6) Clamp the upper plate to the lower one, insert comb and
   let the gel polymerize.

I hope that one can guess the way it works from my attempts
to describe it. Pouring the gels is much easier :-)

--Cornelius.
-- 
/* Cornelius Krasel, Department of Physiological Chemistry, U Tuebingen    */ 
/* email: krasel at studserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de                             */
/* "People are DNA's way of making more DNA." (R. Dawkins / anonymous)     */