In the gel electrophoresis experiment, amplified product is pipetted into one of 8 different wells in the gel and a voltage is applied across the gel bed to move the samples through the gel and separate any DNA mixtures into bands according to their mass or number of base pairs. Heavier bands are always at the top of the gel since they move slowest when a voltage is applied. Samples are added to the wells on the gel using the pipet to transfer amplified product from a tube, dragging it across the gel to identify the well, and then clicking once to pipet the sample into the well. Students must attach the voltage leads to the gel bed as part of the gel experiment. This is done by clicking and dragging each lead to the appropriate location on the top or bottom of the bed. The power supply below the lab bench is used to control the gel experiment.
The power supply is used to control the voltage and the time the voltage is
applied to the gel experiment. The main power button is located next to the voltage leads, and the LCD screen allows you to set the duration, the voltage, and displays the time remaining on the experiment. The On/Off button is used to actually apply the voltage to the gel, and the voltage will turn off automatically after the specified time has elapsed.
The gel electrophoresis display in Live Data is used to view the appearance of the gel bed before, during, and after the experiment. The display depicts the gel in room light with the wells at the top. The first and last lanes on the gel are used for a standard set of markers that are 200, 400, 800, 1000, and 2000 base pairs. Bromophenol blue is used as a tracking dye in each lane to track the movement of the bands, and SYBR is used as a marker dye to view the position of each band with UV light.
Across the top of the gel display are several buttons. Save is used to save the gel image to the lab book. This button is only active when the UV light is on. The UV button turns on the UV light to expose the marker dye. When the UV light is on a Pipet icon will also be available. This icon is used to pick up the pipet and extract a DNA sample from the separated bands for further amplification. Lastly, on the right is a Horizontal Tool that can be used to measure or estimate the mass of any bands on the gel. This is done by clicking on the icon and then dragging the horizontal tool down the gel. The right hand side of the gel is used to display the estimated mass.