In the first gel electrophoresis we ran, two of the samples
were slightly denatured, this could have been due to fat content of the
proteins we chose or could have been from exposing the samples to too much heat
in the water bath. The proteins affected were cougar and cow; the most likely
cause of error was probably due to fat content. When we ran the gel a second
time, the results fared better, and we followed the same procedure, regarding
water bath time, leading to the conclusion heat played little part in the error
of the first run.
One observation surprised my group in the first run of the
gel, we could use the larger pipette tips for pipetting the samples into the
well, we only did this a couple times, but it did not negatively impact our
results; we just had to ensure the tip was centered with the well. The second
run of the gel we used the thinner micropipette tips to transfer the samples to
the well. We also transferred fewer microliters to well in the second run in
hopes of avoiding the denaturing we experienced in the first run. We noted
little difference between the first and second run in our gels. The gels provided
some evidence we could not predict beforehand the bear, cow, and sheep share a
protein band in common toward the bottom of the gel. We expected the bear would
reside in the middle in terms of phylogeny as it is still mammalian and omnivorous,
this commonality in protein suggests some relation.
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