Gel Cassettes

Multiple Gel Options

Two gel formulations meet many sequencing library prep needs.  The 2% agarose cassette is ideal for cuts between 100-300 bp when narrow size distributions (4-5% CV) are desirable.  For longer reading platforms and mate-pair protocols, a 1.3% cuts reliably extracts 650-900 bp.  The gel cut ranges cover a number of other applications including those that require wider cut distributions. 

Pre-cast and Disposable with or without Ethidium

Gel cassettes are manufactured by Sage Science using agarose and and one of two options:

1. Cast with ethidium bromide as an intercalating fluorescent dye.  

2. Ethidium free with the DNA marker covalently labeled with ethidium bromide homo-dimer.

Ethidium cassettes should be used if visulization of DNA sample is important, and the ethidium free version should be used if starting amounts of DNA are typically low and for routine throughput applications.

How the Gel Cassette Collects DNA Fractions

The Pippin Prep Gel Cassettes use a DNA size marker, run in a dedicated sample lane, to determine the timing of size-selected collections. Four lanes are used for DNA samples, and one extraction can be collected per per lane according to user input size ranges.  Samples lanes are physically separate, and tapered to shorten run times and improve resolution.  The animation below illustrates how DNA fractions are collected.