Re: is it possible to use a acrylamidegel in a electrophoresis tray for agarose

Hello you,

I must say that this is a question that I have never asked myself. I 
have thought a lot about it and I finally did a trial gel just to UV shadow
some DNA but I couldn't see because of the thickness of the gel 
(even if I had taken care of that).

I think that there is no problem with the migration. We should say that
both the acrylamide and agarose gels are based on a matrix that acts 
as a sieve in an electrical field. So, no worries about the basic 
principles. However, I have to say that you should try to make your gel 
as thin as possible in your agarose tray because it could potentially 
be a problem for the staining and/or observation of your gel 
afterwards.

Finally, if you don't own one and have some money to spare, the ideal 
way to go is to get a MINI-PROTEAN II (or III) system from BIORAD (or
something similar). These apparatus are designed to do protein stuff 
but I use them for nucleic acid work. They are small (about 6X6 cm) 
and can do quite thin gels. I typically use ten times less acrylamide to 
do the same job. Of course, the more resolution you need, the longer 
your gel should be. Nevertheless, these gels can do a good job in 
some situations.

Hope this helps,

Daniel