Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 22, 2026

Author Spotlight: Assembly and Operation of a Cooling Stage to Immobilize C. elegans on Their Culture Plates
Published on: May 5, 2023
Precise control of agarose media pore structure by regulating cooling rate
Chao Chen1, Xiunan Li1, Dawei Zhao1
1National Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China.
Abstract:
A porous structure is the key factor to successful chromatography separation. Agarose gel as one of the most popular porous media has been extensively used in chromatography separation. As the cooling process in the agarose gelation procedure can directly influence the pore structure, ten kinds of 4% agarose media with different cooling rates from 0.132 to 16.7°C/min were synthesized, and the pore structure was determined accurately by using low-field NMR spectroscopy. The curves of pore structure and cooling rate can be divided into two stages with the boundary of 6°C/min. In stage I, the pore structure met a power equation with the decrease of the cooling rate, and in stage II, the process reached a plateau. Confirmatory experiments proved that, by adjusting the cooling rate, a precise control of the pore structure of agarose media can be realized, furthermore, cooling rate optimization was an effective way to control the pore size of agarose media and can further tailor the pore structure for more effective separation of different proteins.
Related Concept Videos
Physical Methods for Controlling Microbial Growth: Temperature
DNA Agarose Gel Electrophoresis
Gel extraction follows five major steps: running gel electrophoresis to separate fragments, isolating the individual bands, extracting DNA from those bands, and removing the dye and salts from the extracted mixture to obtain pure DNA.
In cloning experiments, both the insert and vector DNA...
Methods for Controlling Microbial Growth
Physical Methods for Controlling Microbial Growth: Radiation and Filtration

