Educational Materials

Supplier: G-Biosciences

Using the Protein Electrophoresis kit, students will learn the principles of various types of electrophoresis, including denaturing and non-denaturing electrophoresis, and how this powerful technique is used to analyse proteins. The kit will introduce students to the different separation matrices currently in use and will understand their differing separation properties and their role in protein analysis. Students have an option of casting their own electrophoresis gels using polyacrylamide or using pre-cast commercially available gels. This kit is provided with all of the reagents, buffers and supplies needed for casting acrylamide gels, preparing protein samples, running electrophoresis, and staining the gels for visualisation of protein bands. Test protein samples and protein standards are also provided.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

Prepacked purification columns for protein purification. Supplied in packs of five.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

Dialysis is a routinely used technique in research laboratories to 'change' the solution a biomolecule is dissolved in. Often the buffers used to isolate biomolecules, such as proteins, are not compatible with downstream applications due to high concentrations of reagents, such as salts. A sample is placed in a bag with a semi-permeable membrane and then placed in the new solution or water. Small molecules, such as salt, can pass through the membrane, moving from an area of high concentration to low concentration. The larger molecules, such as proteins, are retained in the bag. Microdialysis is a modification of dialysis to overcome the problem of dialysing small volumes of precious samples. Microdialysis uses small devices designed for small volumes. This kit allows students to study dialysis using patented microdialysis devices.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

The Hydrophobic Chromatography kit is designed to teach students the basic principle of hydrophobic chromatography utilising a hydrophobic enzyme. The use of the enzyme allows purification followed by a simple enzyme assay to detect the fractions that contain the enzyme. This lab activity involves preparation of a crude protein extract and running hydrophobic chromatography to isolate the enzyme.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

In this lab activity, students learn to perform carefully controlled experiments to generate protein fragments using a proteolysis enzyme and then analyse the protein fragments by electrophoresis. By analysis of protein fragmentation patterns, i.e. protein fingerprints, students learn about protein sequence, structure, and their conservation. Students resolve a set of three functionally identical protein samples selected from throughout the animal kingdom; including human, bovine and sheep. After generating fingerprints by electrophoresis, students examine the protein fingerprint of each sample to determine the degree of conservation.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

Following restriction enzyme digestion of DNA molecules, researchers need to rejoin the ends of the DNA to generate recombinant DNA, a process known as ligation. Ligation of DNA is achieved with the bacterial enzyme T4 DNA ligase, which catalyses the formation of phosphodiester bonds. The DNA Ligation kit teaches students about ligation as they ligate several DNA fragments together to make larger pieces of DNA that are easily identified by agarose electrophoresis.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

In this lab activity, students learn to perform simple protein isolation procedures to isolate the protein fingerprint from various fresh tissues. They will compare the protein fingerprints of four different tissues to understand that the function of a particular organ is due to the proteins that are localised to the specific organ. Also included in this kit are four dried protein samples (from mouse liver, brain, heart and lungs) to compare as a control, if fresh tissues cannot be obtained.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

Ion exchange chromatography is used to separate charged molecules from complex biological samples. The charged molecules bind to a solid support carrying an opposite charge to the molecule. Proteins contain regions of charged groups on the surface which interact with the ion exchange groups immobilised on the solid support (resin column). Immobilised proteins are eluted by changing either pH or the salt gradient or a combination of both. This lab activity involves preparation of a crude protein extract and running ion exchange chromatography for isolation of proteins.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

This lab activity has two objectives - to deepen the understanding of protein molecules and for students to learn the potential of electrophoresis in protein analysis. Students study the fundamentals of protein structure from their primary structure to the more complex tertiary and quaternary structures, utilising protein electrophoresis. Complex mixtures of protein samples and characterised pure protein samples, in conjunction with electrophoresis, are utilised to study protein structure and the potential of protein electrophoresis. Using non-denaturing and denaturing electrophoresis, students understand the difference between primary, tertiary and quaternary structures, the importance of disulfhydryl bridges in maintaining protein structure and electrophoresis in studying complete proteins and protein subunits.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

The Affinity Chromatography kit teaches the basic principle of affinity chromatography utilising highly specific affinity columns. This lab activity involves preparation of a crude protein extract and running affinity exchange chromatography for isolation of a protein.

Supplier: MACHEREY-NAGEL

Advanced kit for science education.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

The final goal in molecular biology is often the expression of a recombinant protein. The transformed plasmids can be used as templates by the bacteria to produce protein. Students learn about essential promoters and other elements necessary for successful protein expression in bacteria, including the differences between inducible and constitutive (unregulated) expression.The Expression of a Recombinant Protein kit allows students to express a protein either constitutively or under the control of an inducible promoter, which is activated with IPTG (isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside).

Supplier: G-Biosciences

This lab activity is designed to study highly specific lock-key matching properties of antigen-antibody and how this highly specific interaction can be exploited as a tool for research and analysis. This study involves the use of an immunodiffusion technique in which antigen and antibody are allowed to diffuse in a solid agarose medium. When antigen and antibody meet, antigen-antibody complex is formed, which leads to precipitation. Antigen-antibody precipitate is formed in the zone where the concentration of the two matching pairs reaches an optimal known as the zone of equivalence, which results in formation of a visible opaque precipitate region in agarose medium. Those regions of precipitation can be used for determination of concentration or titer of both antigen and antibody. This Antigen-Antibody Interaction kit is a hands-on study of both Ouchterlony Double Diffusion and Radial Immunodiffusion techniques. This kit also provides additional guidance materials for teaching other types of antigen-antibody interactions concepts such as immunoelectrophoresis and immunoprecipitation.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

The kit utilises the principle of diffusion of nucleic acids on a nylon membrane to determine their concentration. No spectrophotometers required.

Supplier: MACHEREY-NAGEL

An ideal introductory kit for the science education sector. The kit contains all the the chemicals, plates and accessories for students to perform separations of dyes including: anthaquinone dye mixtures, lipophilic dye mixtures and food dye mixtures. The TLC plates are polyester sheet based with either silica, cellulose or alumina as coating.

Supplier: G-Biosciences

A major challenge for molecular biologists and genetic engineers is to easily detect and analyze genetic mutations that occur naturally, causing diseases, or during genetic engineering or cloning, whether deliberate or accidental. Students learn about different types of genetic mutations, including substitutions, deletions and point mutations and about various techniques used to detect genetic mutations. The kit contains all the reagents to screen simulated clinical samples for a mutant gene, using both the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction digestion mapping. Students conduct a simple clinical diagnostic experiment in order to identify a diseased patient.