Research Project - Section AA

Robert Barker

Jenny Mcfarland

Research Project

Protein Gel Electrophoresis: Cow, Turkey and Chicken

                The research group project I am involved in is examining the skeletal and heart muscles of Cow, Turkey and Chicken via gel electrophoresis, we believe the skeletal and heart muscles of these animals will have similar proteins if their function is similar.

                There is one main difference for protein Gel electrophoresis. Agarose gel is commonly used for running gel electrophoresis, however, proteins would be unable to move due to the tertiary structure of them. Instead, Sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS Gel) is a detergent that is used for proteins to denature them along with prior heating of the proteins in a heat bath. DNA gel electrophoresis is measured in Kilobases, which are lengths of different nucleotide bases and proteins are measured in Kilodaltons, which are equal to the mass of a 1000 hydrogen atoms (The University of Queensland).

 Reference: 

The University of Queensland, 2017. SDS Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). [cited February 10, 2017] Available from: http://www.di.uq.edu.au/sparqsdspage