What: For this lab, we made gels with agarose in them. This lab was a technique use to figure out the size of DNA fragments. The technique is called electrophoresis. How: First, we had to make the gel for the lab. In order to do this, we had to get 70mL of dextrose and then add 0.84g of agarose into it. Then, we microwaved the solution until all of the agarose disappears. Next, we let the solution sit and cool down a little bit. Meanwhile, we prepared the gel casting tray by inserting the combs in specific areas. After that, we poured the solution into the gel containers and left them overnight for it to solidify. The next day, we made a flowchart on what to do afterwards because Jeff said that many people do this process wrong. Next, Jeff gave us a sample gel to pracice the lab on first. The sample gel was in a small petri dish and it had 8 wells (4 for each person). We were given a pipette, red dye, and water. Our first job was to fill the gel with water so all the wells are completely covered, then we used the pipette to draw the red dye and inserted the dye in each well. By doing this, we learned how to fill the well without missing the well or piercing into the gel. Those are the most common mistakes that are made. Once evryone has practiced, we moved on to the real thing. For the actual lab, we put the gel we made into the electrophoresis box. Once it was in the electrophoresis box, we were able to insert the dyes in the wells of the gels and fill the box with water so all the wells are covered. S1 has Bromophenol Blue which is a purple color and has 300 based pairs. S2 has Orange G and that gives us the DNA ladder. S3 Xylene Cyanol ff which is blue and has 4000 based pairs. When we were done putting the dyes in the wells, we covered the box with the cap then we plugged the electrophoresis box to a power source and waited for the magic to happen (gels moving). The box was plugged in for abpout 20 minutes. Then, we took the gels out to measure how far the dyes moved from the place we originally put it. Observations: When i saw our gel, I expected the gels to be moved further. I also noticed an extra dye spot, I think it is there because when I was putting it in the specific tank, I accidentally put some in the wrong tank. I also saw that Orange G produced three different colors of dyes and two of them are the same color as BB and XC. And where there are similar Orange G colors, they matched up in movement as the others. Data: Below is the data we recorded about the dyes. That includes how many based pairs the dyes have and how far they moved. Analysis: Below is the graph I made with the data we recorded. I believe that my orange g is not on the trendline because of how we measured the lengths that the dyes moved. We probably estimated to the nearest whole number. That effects the data because it isn't precise. If I were to redo this lab, I would be for precise with my measurements and not round to the nearest whole number.
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