Australia's Science Forum

Hey Guys,

Our Seniors have just completed their first try at Protein electrophoresis. They tested a variety of proteins, including two different types of prawns. The results (although unfortunately a bit torn) are quite impressive. It is possible to see the difference between a Tiger Prawn and a Common Prawn, as well as bands of similarity and difference between our usual dinner table meats.

I am impressed - Hope you are too.

Wow!! Can you share the prac sheet for this? How do they prepare the samples?

Yes please smily

This is so good how did you do it

We bought a Comparative Proteomics Kit 1:Protein Profiler Module from BioRad, and the gel was a BioRad mini-PROTEAN TGX precast gel. The kit has all the chemicals required, and an instruction book.

Basically, the kids cut a tiny piece of meat from their species, and put it into a flip-top vial with some buffer (Laemmli buffer). Samples were incubated at room temp, and the liquid poured off into another tube. Then we heated the samples to 95 degrees, and dropped samples into the pre-cast gel. As shown in the pic, we used Myosin & Actin sample as a standard, as well as a pre-prepared standard from BioRad.

We have a blue-View illuminator, but we also stained the gel.

See? Easy!

Wow that is impressive! Is it expensive to get set up with all that equipment?
Kathryn