Casting gels-- messy wells

[emily_88_88]

Hi, I need some help. I cast my own gels (12.5% acrylamide in the stacking, 10% in the resolving), and I'm getting a major mess whenever I remove my combs-- 10 wells, 1 mm thick. I've tried to clean it out by flushing it with a pipettor, as well as physically trying to clean it out using the tip of a needle. Nothing works. The needle only pushes around the left-over bits of gel, and the flushing is useless.

I need help! Does anybody else have this problem?

Thanks,
Emily.

[DeniseM]

Hi Emily,
Yeah, this happens with polyacrylamide gels. What I usually did was cut pieces of filter paper to fit in the wells to soak up liquid and hope the bits and pieces would stick to the paper and get pulled out. You might also check to make sure the plates are clamped well at the comb level (but not too tight.......cracked plates are a pain!). You might also have a bit of trouble if you're removing the combs too early-I usually let the gel polymerize for about 30 minutes. I used a 4% resolving gel, though, not 10%.

Good luck,
Denise