Bio-Rad Announces Mini-PROTEAN® TGX™ Gels for Reproducible Laemmli PAGE Performance, Unprecedented Speed and Extended Shelf Life

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. announces that it has launched Mini-PROTEAN TGX (Tris-Glycine eXtended) precast gels, providing researchers with the fastest running, long shelf life precast gels on the market for protein electrophoresis using the standard Laemmli buffer system.

"The key challenges for electrophoresis applications in research continue to be reproducibility and time to results," said Dr Alpana Prasad, Product Manager at Bio-Rad. "Mini-PROTEAN TGX gels are the only long shelf life polyacrylamide gels the market that deliver the convenience of the precast format and use the gold standard Laemmli buffer system. The short run times and enhanced separation resolution and reproducibility of these gels will provide invaluable benefits for researchers looking to achieve better results in less time and at lower costs."

The Mini-PROTEAN TGX gels are based on a modification of the Laemmli buffer system that significantly increases gel matrix stability and performance over time. The modification extends the gel shelf life to more than 12 months and offers consistent superior resolution and reproducibility while delivering unprecedented electrophoresis run speeds. The Mini-PROTEAN TGX gels can be run to completion in as little as 12 minutes, which is significantly less time than any other PAGE system using precast or handcast gels.

Dr Stephen Mayfield, Director of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology at the University of California, San Diego, has been using Mini-PROTEAN TGX gels in his lab to analyze recombinant protein expression.

"TGX gels give me the confidence of knowing that they will work every time, even after weeks of storage," said Mayfield. "In addition, we run our gels fast and we’ve been very satisfied with the performance and quality of separation."

Compared to other long shelf life products, Mini-PROTEAN TGX precast gels have the advantage of using the standard and inexpensive Tris/Glycine/SDS buffers that researchers have preferred over other buffer systems for more than 30 years.

Other distinctive features of the TGX precast gels include:

• Improved easy-to-use ergonomic cassette design — The Mini-PROTEAN TGX gel cassette facilitates sample loading and identification and is compatible with Mini-PROTEAN Tetra (1–4 gels) and Dodeca™ cells (1–12 gels), and Mini-PROTEAN 3 electrophoresis cells
• Greater molecular weight accuracy — The greater linearity of separation in Mini-PROTEAN TGX gels delivers more accurate molecular weight estimation when compared with other precast gels
• Greater transfer efficiency — The proteins from the gel can be transferred onto a PVDF or nitrocellulose membrane in as little as 15 minutes
• Downstream applications — The gels deliver superior staining with low background

The Mini-PROTEAN TGX precast gels are currently available in 7.5%, 10%, 12%, 4–15%, 4–20%, and a unique formulation, Any kD™. Any kD gels offer optimal resolution of proteins in the 20–100 kD molecular weight range and are ideal for the second dimension of 2-D electrophoresis for rapid proteomic analysis.

The launch of TGX precast gels represents the beginning of Bio-Rad’s Electroforward campaign to deliver innovative solutions to the market that will redefine the future of electrophoresis research and fundamentally change how researchers will get work done.