A simple apparatus for fast and inexpensive recovery of DNA from polyacrylamide gels

A typical elution procedure for DNA should be easy, quick, inexpensive, highly efficient and must provide DNA of good purity and quality to carry out any further enzymatic reactions. Although a number of procedures and apparatus for the specific isolation of DNA from polyacrylamide gels have been described, none possess all these qualities. In this report, we describe the use of a simple apparatus with which DNA molecules can be eluted from polyacrylamide gels with a recovery efficiency of about 90% prior to ethanol precipitation. The quality of these elution products is good enough to allow their use in any further enzymatic reactions. In addition to the fact that more than a dozen individual samples can be eluted and isolated in less than two hours (less than one hour for a single sample), the estimated low cost per electroeluted sample makes it the most affordable and economical elution method available.