ZELLX® Agaroses

ZELLX® offers a range of Agarose natural linear polysaccharides derived from seaweed (red algae) that can be used as inert matrices in electrophoresis, chromatography and other molecular biology and biochemistry techniques.

Lack of toxicity makes working with agarose very convenient and useful as a gelling agent in many biological and biochemical applications, such as nucleic acid electrophoresis, gel chromatography, affinity chromatography, ion exchange chromatography, immunodiffusion techniques, gel plates or overlays for cells in tissue culture and cell culture media.

Agarose properties

Agarose consists of the D-galactose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose repeating units, forming a porous substance, mesh or net with webs of channels with diameters from 50 nm to 200 nm. Its structure provides the ability to slow down the movement of DNA and other molecules in a way that smaller molecules travel quicker through the agarose gel, while, bigger molecules moves slower, this ability leads to separation of DNA fragments in a process called gel electrophoresis.

ZELLX® Agaroses are distinguished by very high quality, as measured on the key parameters that include:

• Sulfate content: As the major ionic group present in Agarose, sulfate is the key indicator of purity.
• Gel strength: The force that must be applied to a defined area of the gel to cause it to fracture.
• Gelling point: The temperature at which an aqueous agarose solution forms a gel as it cools.
• Melting point: The temperature at which agarose forms an aqueous solution as it warms. Since Agarose solutions shows hysteresis in the liquid-to-gel transition; their gel point and the melting points are not the same.
• Electroendosmosis (EEO): The movement of liquid in a porous material due to an applied electric field. Since this can disrupt separations due to internal convection, low EEO leads to better movement and separation.

ZELLX® Agarose range

The ZELLX® Agarose offerings includes a comprehensive range of high quality and affordable agarose formulations, covering the full spectrum of molecular biology applications and allowing researchers to precisely match their chosen gel matrix to experiment for superior results.

Each of the ZELLX® Agarose products emphasizes a different balance of the key properties:

• Agarose LE: Low electroendosmosis agarose is most commonly used for DNA gel electrophoresis, whereby, low EEO describes the electrically influenced movement of material through gel. Agarose LE increases mobility, and reduces band distortion caused by counterflow. It promotes increased electrophoretic mobility, results in improved resolution and shorter run times. Low EEO Agarose also allows migration of larger particles such as viruses through the matrix.
• Agarose LM: Low Melting temperature agarose is chemically modified to introduce hydroxyethyl groups into the agarose molecule. This chemical modification decreases the gelling temperature to ˜ 26 °C and the melting temperature at 65 °C. Low melting temperature allows for the recovery of undamaged nucleic acids below denaturation temperature. Easily digested by agarose enzymes, makes Agarose LM an ideal option to recover large DNA fragments suitable for cloning or enzymatic processing. Agarose LM has low EEO (electroendosmosis, ≤0.12), allowing for sharp DNA banding and high resolution.
• Agarose HR : High Resolution molecular biology grade Agarose is suitable for the separation of small DNA fragments and PCR products between 20 – 1000 bp. Due to its improved resolution, it is suitable for applications that require efficient separation of small DNA fragments and PCR products. Agarose HR with an excellent clarity of gels at a concentration of as high as 5%, allows the separation of DNA fragments differing by 2% in molecular weight and provides a good alternative to polyacrylamide electrophoresis. The gelling and melting temperature of this agarose is lower than Agarose LE and higher than Agarose LM.
• Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) Agarose: This high gel strength agarose is designed to support Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) in separation of large DNA molecules by applying an electric field to a gel that periodically alters direction. Small DNA molecules (less than 20 kb) can be separated by standard gel electrophoresis technique as they move in a size-dependent manner, however, DNA larger than 20-25 kb move together through the gel in a size-independent manner and appear in a gel as a single large diffuse band, and therefore, the standard gel electrophoresis technique is unable to separate very large DNA molecules effectively.

See Resources for full details of these products.

Resources

Click on ZELLX Agarose Range  for further information.
Click on ZELLX Agarose LE for product details.
Click on ZELLX Agarose LM  for product details.
Click on ZELLX Agarose HR  for product details.
Click on ZELLX PFGE Agarose  for product details.