DNA staining in agarose gels

[Eric R. Hugo]

As a followup to the methylene blue staining discussion
just begun (and from a few months back), I have found that
a slight modification greatly reduces the background
staining problem.  Instead of staining in 0.02% methylene
blue for 30-60 min and then destaining for what seems to
be forever I've found that 0.002% (1/10th X) works just as
well and the background is much lighter.  I have also found
much to my surprise that NuSieve:Agarose (3:1, 4% final) gels
stain very nicely and that dsDNA as small as 75 bp is easily
visualized.  I'm currently using MB staining for all of
my cloning work as I discovered that I get 20-50X as many
positive clones from band isolated DNA when comparing MB
to ethidium bromide/UV transillumination.
     Hope that this was of some help
                              Eric
--
  Eric R. Hugo, Postdoctoral Research Associate |eric at bcserv.wustl.edu
  Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics|finger above for            
  Washington University School of Medicine      |public key <-- 
  Box 8231, St. Louis, MO 63110_________________| (314) 362-3342