[A convenient method of recovering DNA from agarose electrophoretic gels].

OBJECTIVE

Construct a simple unit to efficiently recover DNA from agarose electrophoretic gels.

METHODS

With the use of 1.5ml microcentrifuge tube, 1 ml tip, nylon web membrane and dialysis membrane, the authors made a clever yet simple DNA recovering gadget, tested this gadget by using it to recover specific electrophoretic DNA bands of lambdaDNA/EcoR I+Hind III markers, and then examined the recovery ratio through agarose gel electrophoresis. A restriction enzyme's digestion product was taken as another sample to test the recovered product's quality by means of DNA ligation and subsequent agarose gel electrophoresis.

RESULTS

Under such electroelution conditions as with an electrophoretic buffer of 1xTBE, a voltage grade of 3V/cm and an elution time of 0.5h, the final recovery ratio of 564bp DNA was up to 80%, and that of 21227bp DNA was about 30%. Judged either by the agarose gel electrophoresis performance or by the DNA ligation result, the recovered DNA proved to be of excellent quality.

CONCLUSION

It is an easy, quick, efficient and cheap method of recovering DNA from agarose electrophoretic gels. The recovering unit can be a permanent one, provided that the dialysis membrane in this unit is changed for recovering different DNA samples.