An Economical Alternative to Ethidium Bromide for Visualization of DNA ?

Ethidium bromide is the classic reagent for the detection of nucleic acids on agarose gel electrophoresis. However, it is a recognized mutagen and care and attention are merited in its use. In the research lab, it is quite easy to regulate its use, since the personnel are aware of the  issues. However, in the education lab  the potential for accidental exposure is high.   Other less toxic reagents such as the SYBR series have  come into use, but they are significantly more expensive than Et BR.  So, in this post, we have examined whether the SYBR reagents can be directly added to the sample. If this works, it would avoid the need to include the visualization reagent in the agarose gel and thus be a significant saving, especially in an education environment. As shown in the picture,  increasing amounts of SYBR green  were added to 100ng of DNA marker ladders,  1ul of a 1/1000 dilution of SYBR green is sufficient to visualize 100ng of DNA (lane 3).

Thus SYBR  green  is a safe,  effective and economical reagent to visualize DNA.