Purifying Bacto-Agar: Suggestions?

[Todd Richmond]

In article <3tc71f$ip8 at rover.ucs.ualberta.ca>,
mdeyholo at gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca (Michael Deyholos) wrote:

> To save money, I'd like to use bacto-agar (e.g. DIFCO) in place of noble 
> agar as part of 
> a solid growth medium for screeing seedling-lethal mutations in Arabidopsis.
> 
> I've heard of washing bacto-agar in cold TE or water for a few days in a 
> cold room.  Apparently, the agar turns pure white after a few washes.
> 
> Does anyone else have experience with this?  
> 
> Anyone know of a supplier of "PHYT-AGAR"
> 
> Thanks,
> Mike

We've washed "plant tissue culture certified" agar with 95% EtOH a couple
of times
and then strained it through cheesecloth or Miracloth and let it dry.  We
needed really
clean agar for some transformation experiments and this took care of some of the
problems we were having.  It might work for bacto-agar as well.

Todd

**********************************************************
Todd Richmond                  trichmon at students.wisc.edu
B129 Birge Hall                UW-Madison Dept of Botany      

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