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EMBER500™ RNA Prestain

Sensitive & Convenient RNA Detection on a Regular Agarose Gel

Offers much greater brightness and sensitivity than ethidium bromide.
All-in-one loading dye in convenient 2X concentration. Includes formamide and tracking dyes.
Stains both DNA & RNA. Works with both UV transilluminators & blue LED Gel Imagers.

Evaluate Total RNA Integrity With Less Sample

Still staining RNA using ethidium bromide?

Staining RNA with ethidium bromide (EtBr) requires a significant amount of the dye yet still offers very limited sensitivity for RNA when prestaining or post-staining gels. EMBER500™ was developed by Biotium scientists to offer much brighter signal and higher sensitivity than EtBr for RNA gel staining, allowing users to use less RNA sample to quickly verify RNA is free from degradation and DNA contamination. For maximum convenience, EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye includes formamide as well as electrophoresis tracking dyes, allowing sample denaturing, loading, tracking, and staining in a single step. The prestain is supplied as a 2X concentration, for convenient loading of sample and dye in equal volumes.

Features and benefits of EMBER500™

  • Sensitive: Brighter and much more sensitive than EtBr
  • Convenient: Denature, load, track and stain RNA samples in a single step on a regular agarose gel
  • Versatile: Stains both DNA and RNA for evaluating total RNA integrity and DNA contamination
  • Flexible Detection: Detect with UV transilluminators or blue LED gel imagers

EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye

Product Name Catalog Number Size
EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye 41032 4 x 1 mL
EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye 41032-250uL 250 uL

See the Difference

Figure 1. Human total cellular RNA in water was mixed with EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye or loading dye with 250 ug ethidium bromide (EtBr). Samples were heated for 10 minutes at 70°C, then run on a non-denaturing 1% agarose/1X TBE gel. From left to right, loading amounts were 200, 100, 50, or 25 ng/lane for total RNA. Lanes 1-4 used EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye, lanes 5-8 used RNA loading dye with EtBr. The gel was imaged using a UVP GelDoc-iT® imaging system with a UV transilluminator with EtBr filter with 1.5 second exposure time.

Flexible Detection

Evaluate RNA and detect gDNA contamination

EMBER500™  stains both DNA and RNA, allowing allowing the detection of contaminating genomic DNA in purified RNA samples (Fig. 2.).

Figure 2. Total RNA was extracted from E. coli without DNase-treatment (lane 1) or with DNase-treatment (lane 2) to remove genomic DNA. RNA samples were prestained with EMBER500™ and then separated on a 1% agarose/1X TBE gel at 250 ng per lane. The position of the genomic DNA (gDNA) band and ribosomal RNA bands (23S, 16S, and 5S) are indicated to the left of the gel.

Works with both UV transilluminators and blue LED Gel Imagers

EMBER500™  stains also offers flexible detection for both UV transilluminators with standard filters, or blue LED gel images which eliminate UV exposure hazards (Fig. 3.).

Figure 3. Two-fold dilution series of ssRNA ladder (NEB) was mixed with EMBER500™ RNA Prestain Loading Dye, heated for 10 minutes at 70°C, then run on a non-denaturing 1% agarose/1X TBE gel. From left to right, loading amounts were 500, 250, 125, or 250 ng per lane. Samples in lanes 1-3 were mixed with loading dye at a ratio 1 volume of sample and 1 volume of dye, while the sample in lane 4 was mixed at a ratio of 1 volume of sample and 9 volumes of dye. The gel was imaged using a Thermo Fisher Safe Imager™ 2.0 Blue-Light Transilluminator in a UVP GelDoc-iT® darkroom with GelCam 310 2.0 camera (left, 0.5 second exposure time), or with a UV transilluminator and 535 nm filter for green dyes (center, 1 second exposure time) or EtBr filter (right, 2 second exposure time).