Djankpa Francis Tanam, Wiafe Gideon Akuamoah, Boateng Bernard Ntim, Tsegah Korantema Mawuena, Essien-Baidoo Samuel, Ulanja Mark Bilinyi, Affram Kwame Ofori, Ussif Abdala Mumuni, Agyeman Desmond Owusu, Asante Gabriel
Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, College of Health and Allied Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
BMC Res Notes. 2021 Feb 25;14(1):73. doi: 10.1186/s13104-021-05483-1.
The use of agarose in nucleic acid electrophoresis is the gold standard. However, agarose is very expensive and not readily available in resource limited developing countries like Ghana. Hence, finding a more affordable and readily available alternative to agarose will be a major boost to molecular research in developing countries. This study was aimed at investigating the use of corn starch as a potential substitute for agarose in DNA gel electrophoresis.
Genomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from Plasmodium falciparum and primers were obtained from the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens and amplified using polymerase chain reaction. The amplicon was run on agarose gel to ascertain the molecular weight (as a positive control). When visualized under both blue light and ultraviolet light, the DNA and ladder showed clear and clean bands with the expected molecular weight. Corn starch was then modified with sodium borate buffer, casted into a gel and used to run the same DNA sample. Our findings indicated that similar to agarose, the DNA sample and ladder migrated successfully through the modified starch gel but no bands were visible when visualized under blue and ultra-violet light.
在核酸电泳中使用琼脂糖是金标准。然而，琼脂糖非常昂贵，在像加纳这样资源有限的发展中国家不易获得。因此，找到一种更经济实惠且易于获得的琼脂糖替代品将极大地推动发展中国家的分子研究。本研究旨在调查玉米淀粉作为DNA凝胶电泳中琼脂糖潜在替代品的用途。
从恶性疟原虫中提取基因组脱氧核糖核酸（DNA），引物来自西非传染病病原体细胞生物学中心，并使用聚合酶链反应进行扩增。扩增产物在琼脂糖凝胶上运行以确定分子量（作为阳性对照）。在蓝光和紫外光下观察时，DNA和梯状条带显示出清晰且干净的预期分子量条带。然后用硼酸钠缓冲液对玉米淀粉进行改性，制成凝胶并用于运行相同的DNA样品。我们的研究结果表明，与琼脂糖类似，DNA样品和梯状条带成功地通过改性淀粉凝胶迁移，但在蓝光和紫外光下观察时没有可见条带。
