Drying of Electrophoresis Gels

Important Do not touch the membranes with unprotected fingers, use tweezers and gloves  

Squeeze out air bubbles using a glass rod. Moisten the membrane with Soln. D and place live sheets of filter paper of gel size onto the membrane. Cut paper towels to the same size as the membrane and stack these on top of the filter paper to a height of about 4 cm. Lay a glass plate on top of the pyramid and place a weight on top to hold everything in place. Transfer at RT overnight. 

Remove paper. Mark the position of the gel and the contact side between gel and membrane on the membrane with a pencil. Rinse the membrane with 1 10 diluted Soln. D and allow the membrane to dry on air. Cover the membrane on both sides with filter paper, fix filter paper and membrane with paper clips, and bake for 2 - 3 h at80°C. 

If other membranes are used instead of nitrocellulose, read their instructions for use. 

Sambrook J, Fritsch EF, Maniatis T (1989) Molecular cloning. A laboratory manual. 2nd. ed., vol. 2, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Brown T (1999) In Current protocols in molecular biology. Wiley, New York, Unit 2.9.1 

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