Agaroses

Agaroses are polysaccharide polymers composed of repeating subunits of the disaccharide Agarobiose. Agarose is dissolved in water or buffer at approximately 90 - 100°C and usually gels at around 35°C. In chemically modified agaroses the melting and gelling temperatures can differ considerably. During gelling the agarose polymers form helical fibers and a network of supra fibers with pores of 100 to 300 nm diameter. Agarose gels are mainly used in molecular biology for the electrophoretic separation of nucleic acids and protein purification. DNA molecules with lengths from approximately 50 to 25000 base pairs can be separated using standard agarose gel electrophoresis protocols.