The purified plasmids from unit 4 were digested using restriction enzyme digest. In this unit, you will run the restricted purified plasmids on agarose gel electrophoresis to be able to visualize DNA fragments and determine if you were successful in obtaining a recombinant DNA molecule.
Gel Electrophoresis is a procedure used in molecular biology to separate and identify molecules (such as DNA) by size. The separation of these molecules is achieved by placing them in a gel made up of small pores and setting an electric field across the gel. The molecules will move based on their inherent electric charge (i.e., negatively charged molecules move away from the negative pole) and smaller molecules will move faster than larger molecules; thus, a size separation is achieved within the pool of molecules running through the gel. The gel works in a similar manner to a sieve separating particles by size.
