Bio-Rad Mini Trans-Blot® Cell - Manual (Page 7)

Mini-Trans-Blot Electrophoretic Transfer Cell 1
Section 1
Introduction
Blotting was first performed by Southern in 1975 with
the transfer of DNA from agarose gels to nitrocellulose
membranes. 1 Since that time, blotting has been applied to
RNA 2-4 and proteins 5, 6 in both agarose and polyacrylamide
gels. To circumvent the inefficiencies observed in
various capillary transfers, electric current has been
adopted for eluting proteins from polyacrylamide gels,
as first described by Towbin et al. in 1979. 7 The use of
electrophoretic transfer has also been applied to DNA and
RNA blotting. 8–14 Numerous publications have dealt with
the topic of protein electrophoretic transfer techniques. 15–26
There have also been reviews summarizing the expanding
literature being generated on electrophoretic blotting
methodology. 27–29
The Mini Trans-Blot ® tank is part of Bio-Rad’s modular
Mini-PROTEAN ® Tetra system. The unique feature of this
electrophoresis system is that the electrode modules
are interchangeable. After finishing gel electrophoresis,
remove the electrode module from the buffer tank, insert
a new electrode module, add new buffer, and the next
electrophoresis application can be performed.
The Mini Trans-Blot module accommodates two cassettes
for electrophoretic transfer. The Mini Trans-Blot module is
useful for blotting either protein or nucleic acid from both
agarose and acrylamide gels. It is also capable of blotting
isoelectric focusing gels from horizontal electrophoresis
cells, or DNA and RNA gels from the Mini-Sub ® submarine
electrophoresis cell. For applications where the gel is
larger than 7.5 x 10 cm, or when there are more than two
mini gels to be transferred, the larger standard Trans-Blot ®
cell (catalog #170-3910 or 170-3946), Criterion ™ Blotter
(catalog #170-4070, 170-4071) or the Trans-Blot ® SD
semi-dry cell (catalog #170-3940) should be used.
The heart of the Mini Trans-Blot cell is its electrode
module. This module has the capacity to hold two gel
cassettes between parallel electrodes only 4 cm apart.
The driving force for blotting applications is the voltage
applied over the distance between the electrodes.