Biology Forum › Molecular Biology › Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) or safe dyes???
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- October 18, 2010 at 11:48 pm #13970swing0916Participant
Most people use Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) as a fluorescent dye for DNA. People know it is poisonous and dangerous to cause cancer. Also people use UV to excite EtBr, which is risky for eyes and skins. Some people start to use safe dyes, like SyBr Safe, Gelgreen, Gelred, etc. They are safer but more expensive than EtBr, and can be excited with visible light which is much safer than UV. There are LED Transilluminators, such as UltraBright LED Transilluminator (Maestrogen), SafeImager (Invitrogen), and Dark Reader (Clare), that can be used as a benchtop instrument for these safe dyes well. Our lab is still using Etbr. I just wanna know what other people’s opinion about using safe dyes instead. I heard in US there is almost 30% using safe dyes for DNA.
- October 19, 2010 at 10:48 am #101905JackBeanParticipant
apparently, you are quite interested in that stuff, aren’t you?
- October 20, 2010 at 6:15 am #101931swing0916Participant
I am interested in safe dyes, but people do care about cost. We cannot afford to these safe dyes yet. Maybe it is a trend in the future that safe dyes price will be more acceptable for most of the labs to use.
- October 20, 2010 at 6:17 am #101932swing0916Participant
Even if US, there is still 70 % using EtBr. Is your lab using EtBr or safe dyes?? Why?
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