ABSTRACT
No information can be obtained from an electrophoretic separation unless the positions of the nucleic acids can be detected and recorded. Whilst the focus is the theory and practice of nucleic acid electrophoresis, it would be a serious omission not to review the variety of methods that exist for detecting DNA and RNA molecules once an electrophoretic separation has been achieved. There are a number of dyes that possess the useful property of low fluorescence when free in solution, but high fluorescence when bound to DNA or RNA. The most widely used compound is ethidium bromide. Agarose or polyacrylamide gels that contain ethidium bromide should be collected for incineration with clinical waste. Techniques that employ labeling of DNA or RNA with fluorescent nucleotides use a fundamentally different principle to detect and record the separation of nucleic acids during gel electrophoresis.
