TBE vs. TAE

[eric anderson]

In article <5cfbhm$l1f at cardinal2.Stanford.EDU>,
ladasky at leland.Stanford.EDU (John Ladasky) wrote:

>         I'm starting to wonder whether TBE is worth it.  Every two months
> or so, I have to make a new 10X stock because it has precipitated.  And 
> when I do band purifications from agarose gels, I have to add more sodium
> perchlorate than if I use TAE, with a concomitant loss in DNA yield.  Mean-
> while, I have a 50X stock solution of TAE that I made up a year ago which
> I still use.
> 
>         The only thin g that I can find in the literature is that TBE will
> give better resolution of high molecular-weight bands on an agarose gel
> (10 kB - 30 kB).  Is there any other justification for the use of TBE be-
> sides this?  And could one run sequencing gels with TAE instead of TBE?
> 

john,

i don't know about using TAE for sequencing gels but i have never run an
agarose gel with TBE, partially because i have never wanted to isolate a
10kb+ fragment and partially because it's too much trouble.  i would
switch to TAE for agarose unless you absolutely need to use the TBE.

when you make your TBE stock, do you pH it to 8 and autoclave it?  i've
found that if i do that i can keep it in solution for 6 months or more.

eric

-- 
Eric C. Anderson
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Sloan-Kettering Institute
1275 York Ave. Box 470
New York, NY  10021
(212) 639-2977
e-anderson at ski.mskcc.org