Why could an agarose gel melt during electrophoresis?
Buffer is new, new agarose, checked the voltage, chamber current is checked. Here are a series of tips and questions from several members of the SAPS team:- Check the buffer is about pH 8.3 and gel is made up in the same buffer – assuming you are using TBE , 0.5 x strength is fine. I think this is unlikely to be the problem but I have known electrolysis of some solutions to produce alkali which will dissolve the gel! Are you using the correct percentage agarose? 1% is a good strong gel. Are you using too high a voltage for the design of the gel, and thus overwhelming the heat sink capacity of your tank? Is the buffer system you are using ideal – I have recently tried a new buffer system that caused tremendous heating, so gave up on it. This only ever happened for me when I was ‘pushing’ gels using a voltage tank, and if I was worried I would stop and start and just check that the temperature was OK. It sounds as if the resistance of your system is too high, but we need more info on the
