Lesson plan
SB buffer
SB buffer is a buffer solution used in agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for the separation of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. "SB" is a commercial trademark of Faster Better Media LLC for their sodium boric acid-based conductive medium (US Patent # 7811437), which is based on the publications of Brody and Kern. It is made up of sodium borate, usually 1–10 mM at pH 8.0. It has a lower conductivity, produces sharper bands, and can be run at higher speeds than can gels made from TBE buffer or TAE buffer (5–35 V/cm as compared to 5–10 V/cm). At a given voltage, heat will be generated and thus the gel will be heated. However, SB buffer has lower conductivity than TBE and TAE, and thus the gel temperature is much lower than with TBE or TAE buffers. Therefore, the voltage can be increased to speed up electrophoresis so that a gel run takes only a fraction of the usual time. Downstream applications, such as isolation of DNA from a gel slice or southern blot analysis, work as expected with sodium borate gels. LB buffer containing lithium borate is similar to sodium borate and has all of its advantages, but permits use of even higher voltages due to the lower conductivity of lithium ions as compared to sodium ions. However, lithium borate is somewhat more expensive.
Article summary
SB buffer is a buffer solution used in agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for the separation of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. "SB" is a commercial trademark of Faster Better Media LLC for their sodium boric acid-based conductive medium (US Patent # 7811437), which is based on the publications of Brody and Kern. It is made up of sodium borate, usually 1–10 mM at pH 8.0. It has a lower conductivity, produces sharper bands, and can be run at higher speeds than can gels made from TBE buffer or TAE buffer (5–35 V/cm as compared to 5–10 V/cm). At a given voltage, heat will be generated and thus the gel will be heated. However, SB buffer has lower conductivity than TBE and TAE, and thus the gel temperature is much lower than with TBE or TAE buffers. Therefore, the voltage can be increased to speed up electrophoresis so that a gel run takes only a fraction of the usual time. Downstream applications, such as isolation of DNA from a gel slice or southern blot analysis, work as expected with sodium borate gels. LB buffer containing lithium borate is similar to sodium borate and has all of its advantages, but permits use of even higher voltages due to the lower conductivity of lithium ions as compared to sodium ions. However, lithium borate is somewhat more expensive.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.