Understanding electrophoresis 



For this blog, I wanted to practice electrophoresis, but since I don’t have the lab equipment I wanted to try a DIY experiment. I researched experiments that can be done in the home, and I found a great one that would help me understand a little bit better how electrophoresis works. In this experiment, I will be able to visualize how food color is separated with the help of the electrophoresis.



First, I set up my electrophoresis chamber with a plate and a hair comb to form my sample walls. 



Second, I made the gel with 200 ml of water, 0.4 grams of baking soda, and 2 grams of agar. The agar was the most difficult ingredient to find. Luckily, I found it on amazon. Like in the lab I proceeded to mix the ingredients, then I heated the solution in the microwave for one minute. I let the solution to cool down for 15 minutes before pouring it into my electrophoresis chamber. Then, I waited an hour for the solution to solidify. After an hour, I removed the combs and I was able to see the sample walls.


Third, I filled out the chamber with 200 milliliter of water and 0.4 grams of baking sodas as my buffer solution. Before adding the buffer solution, I removed the borders of the gel to make space for the electrodes for the power supply. Then, I added the color samples into the walls, I used blue, red, and yellow colors. In two of the sample walls, I combined two colors blue/red and red/yellow. I mixed corn syrup with every food color, it added density to the samples.




Lastly, I was able to run my electrophoresis, I used 1 mm stainless steel wire. I placed it on each side of the gel. I used five 9-volt batteries as the power source. I chained all the batteries together.  I connected the positive end of the batteries to the wire farthest from the walls with the alligator clips . I connected the negative end of the batteries to the wire closest to the walls. The food colors will filtrate from the negative charge to the positive charge. 





 It was interesting to see how food color separates from largest to smallest molecules as shown in the picture above. The combined colors blue/red separated after one hour with the help of electrophoresis. :D



Reference list


NIEHS. (2019, November 25). DIY Biology: Build a gel electrophoresis kit and conduct experiments with step-by-step instructions [Video]. YOUTUBE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYLgCq0HiH4




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