Safer alternatives to EtBr, SYBR® Safe, and others

EtBr has been the predominant dye used for nucleic acid staining for decades because of its low price and generally sufficient sensitivity. However, EtBr is a highly mutagenic material. The safety hazard and costs associated with decontamination and waste disposal can ultimately make the nucleic acid dye expensive to use. The dye experts at Biotium developed the extremely popular GelRed® and GelGreen® fluorescent agarose gel stains to not only be the most sensitive DNA gel stains on the market, but also the safest: they are the only DNA gel stains that have been tested and found to be safe and non-toxic by independent laboratories. To learn more, visit the GelRed® and GelGreen® technology page.

Click here to download an App Note on using GelRed® and GelGreen® on the UVP GelDoc-It® imaging system. Click here to download an App Note on using GelGreen® on the UVP GelDoc-It® imaging system with the Visi-Blue™ Converter Plate.

GelRed® and GelGreen® stains are also available pre-coated to ultra-pure LE agarose. Using GelRed® Agarose & GelGreen® Agarose is easy and convenient, and obviates the need to handle concentrated fluorescent dye.

GelRed® Features:

• Visualized with UV transilluminators using ethidium bromide detection settings
• Most sensitive fluorescent red DNA gel stain
• Safer and more environmentally friendly than EtBr, as well as other so-called “safe” gel stains
• Can be used as a post-stain, or precast in agarose
• Available as a 10,000X stock, ready-to-use 3X solution, and in 6X loading buffer format

PAGE GelRed® is a version of our popular GelRed® dye that was specially formulated for staining DNA in polyacrylamide gels. Like the classic GelRed®, PAGE GelRed® has also been found to be safe by independent laboratories.

Download the PAGE GelRed® Safety Report.

As Biotium continues to innovate in gel staining, we now offer a truly unique visible DNA gel stain called DNAzure®. DNAzure® dye binds to DNA in an agarose gel, and after exposure to light develops visible blue bands. The blue staining is long-lasting and doesn’t require any further light source, making it ideal for cutting out bands (no worry about UV light damaging your DNA sample or your eyes). Even more amazing is that this visible stain is more sensitive than more fluorescent DNA gel stains.

DNAzure® Features:

• Deep blue bands visible by the naked eye following 5-30 min light exposure
• Ultrasensitive detection, as little as ~1 ng DNA
• Simplified DNA band excision, without the need for DNA damaging UV light
• Expensive gel documentation systems not required for imaging
• Compatible with downstream cloning applications
• Bands are stable for weeks after color development
• Also detectable on near-infrared scanners

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. 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

Biotium offers several classic nucleic acid gel stains. Oxazole Gold (also known as SYBR® Gold) is a UV-excitable nucleic acid binding dye and is considered the most sensitive fluorescent DNA/RNA gel stain. Oxazole Gold is particularly useful for staining RNA and single-stranded oligos (see figure on right).

Thiazole Green (also known as SYBR® Green) is excitable by UV or blue light and may also be used for detection of DNA or RNA in agarose or polyacrylamide gels.

Ethidium bromide (EtBr) is widely used as a UV-excitable DNA gel stain and is a known mutagen.

Novel Laser Diode Illumination for Superior Performance

Gel illuminators have traditionally relied on UV illumination for visualization of fluorescently labeled nucleic acids and proteins. However, UV-based imaging can damage skin and eyes, as well as your DNA samples. LED-based illuminators were developed as a safer alternative to UV, but often have high background and dimmer signal due to excessive ambient light and poor excitation efficiency.

In partnership with Biotium, OMEC Medical has developed a new type of gel illuminator that uses laser diodes (LDs) optimized for brighter and clearer imaging of gels. The new laser diode-based Gel-Bright™ offers better sensitivity over UV-based transilluminators when imaging green dyes such as GelGreen® or SYBR® Green, as well as significantly better performance over blue LED gel illuminators for red dyes such as GelRed®, ethidium bromide (EtBr), and One-Step Lumitein™ Protein Gel Stain.
Read the full press release.

VIEW & PURCHASE

The Laser Diode Advantage:

• Novel LD illumination: Superior performance for imaging fluorescent gels
• Brighter signal: More sensitive than UV for green dyes
• Versatile: Works well with both green and red dyes, unlike blue LED illuminators
• Safer: Eliminates UV light hazards for user and DNA samples