GelRed nucleic acid gel stain

GelRed® from Biotium is a more sensitive and safer alternative to ethidium bromide for staining dsDNA, ssDNA or RNA in agarose or polyacrylamide gels. Requiring no destaining step, GelRed is nonmutagenic, noncytotoxic and extremely stable. GelRed can be disposed of in regular waste and is compatible with a standard UV transilluminator.

Benefits of using GelRed
• Nonmutagenic
• Noncytotoxic
• Can be disposed of down the drain or in regular waste
• Much more sensitive than EtBr and SYBR® Safe
• Simple to use
• Stable at room temperature for long-term storage
• Microwaveable
• Compatible with a standard UV transilluminator

GelRed and GelGreen® do not readily penetrate living cells

HeLa cells were incubated for 30 minutes at 37°C with 1X SYBR® Safe, GelRed, or GelGreen. SYBR® Safe rapidly bound to DNA in live cells resulting in bright green nuclear staining. GelRed and GelGreen were unable to bind DNA in live cells, shown by the absence of fluorescence.

Comparison of mutagenicity

Comparison of mutagenicity among GelGreen, GelRed, SYBR® Green I and EtBr in +1 frameshift Salmonella indicator strain TA98 with the presence of S9 fraction. * indicates EB was not tested at this concentration. # indicates SYBR Green I was toxic at this concentration.

GelRed is superior to EtBr

Comparison of ethidium bromide (EtBr) and GelRed in precast gel staining using 1% agarose gel in TBE buffer. Two-fold serial dilutions of 1 kb Plus DNA Ladder (Invitrogen) were loaded in the amounts of 200 ng, 100 ng, 50 ng and 25 ng from left to right. Gels were imaged using 300 nm transilluminator and photographed with an EtBr filter.

Formats
• 10,000X in water
• 3X in water
• 10,000X in DMSO

Applications
• Gel purification
• Restriction digest
• Sequencing
• Cloning

Material available for download
GelRed protocol
GelRed and GelGreen safety report
Application note: comparison of nucleic acid gel stains
Application note: next generation gel imaging using GelRed and GelGreen dye