Agarose, low gelling temperature (C15-1237-254)

General description

Agarose is a polymer extracted from agar or agar-bearing marine algae. This purified linear galactan hydrocolloid comprises alternating co-polymers D-galactose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactopyranose units connected by α-(1→3) and β-(1→4) glycosidic bonds. Agarose is highly biocompatible due to its variable mechanical and diffusion properties.

Application

Excellent for in-gel enzymatic reactions and cloning assays and for recovery of heat-labile samples after electrophoresis
Agarose has been used:

• to encapsulate Escherichia coli on a hydrogel in tissue culture
• to entrap Aliivibrio fischeri on a disposable card involved in designing of toxicity biosensors
• as a the dispersed phase of emulsion during preparation agar beads

Biochem/physiol Actions

Agarose can be used as a gelling agent, to separate nucleic acids electrophoretically because its gels have larger pore sizes than polyacrylamide gels at low concentrations. Unlike polyacrylamide, the consistency of the gels is more solid (but also less elastic) It is also employed to determine cross reaction in immunoelectrophoresis (IEP) and Ouchterlony (double diffusion) plates in which antibody-antigen precipitin lines are studied. Agarose is used to make gel plates or overlays for cells in tissue culture. In addition, it is also used to form a gel matrix (either beaded and/or crosslinked) which can be used in chromatographic separations.

Analysis Note

The following is a list of properties associated with our agaroses:
Sulfate content - used as an indicator of purity, since sulfate is the major ionic group present.
Gel strength - the force that must be applied to a gel to cause it to fracture.
Gel point - the temperature at which an aqueous agarose solution forms a gel as it cools. Agarose solutions exhibit hysteresis in the liquid-to-gel transition - that is, their gel point is not the same as their melting temperature.
Electroendosmosis (EEO) - a movement of liquid through the gel. Anionic groups in an agarose gel are affixed to the matrix and cannot move, but dissociable counter cations can migrate toward the cathode in the matrix, giving rise to EEO. Since electrophoretic movement of biopolymers is usually toward the anode, EEO can disrupt separations because of internal convection.

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