Electroelution is a method used to extract a

nucleic acid Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...

or a

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

sample from an

electrophoresis Electrophoresis, from Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ḗlektron, "amber") and φόρησις (phórēsis, "the act of bearing"), is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric fie ...

gel by applying a negative current in the plane of the smallest dimension of the gel, drawing the macromolecule to the surface for extraction and subsequent analysis.

Electroblotting Electroblotting is a method in molecular biology/biochemistry/ immunogenetics to transfer proteins or nucleic acids onto a membrane by using PVDF or nitrocellulose, after gel electrophoresis. The protein or nucleic acid can then be further anal ...

is based upon the same principle.

DNA extraction

Using this method, DNA fragments can be recovered from a particular region of agarose or polyacrylamide gels. The gel piece containing the fragment is excised (cut out from the whole gel) and placed in a dialysis bag with buffer. Electrophoresis causes the DNA to migrate out of the gel into the dialysis bag buffer. The DNA fragments are recovered from this buffer and purified, using phenol/chloroform extraction followed by

ethanol precipitation Ethanol precipitation is a method used to purify and/or concentrate RNA, DNA, and polysaccharides such as pectin and xyloglucan from aqueous solutions by adding ethanol as an antisolvent. DNA precipitation Theory DNA is polar due to its highl ...

. This method is simple, rapid and yields high (75%) recovery of DNA fragments from gel pieces.

References

Genetics experiments {{Genetics-stub