FastGene Blue/Green LED Transilluminator DE

Say goodbye to UV light
FastGene Blue/Green systems are the latest LED-based illuminators for detection of DNA and RNA. All of these systems come equipped with advanced blue/green illumination. Blue/green LEDs excite a broad spectrum (instead of just a narrow blue band) allowing these systems to be more sensitive with the growing number of non-toxic DNA dye as well as traditional dyes such as EtBr. Utilizing the superior technology of ultra-bright blue-green LEDs provides equivalent results to UV transilluminators in many cases, but without the risk of damaging DNA in a gel or harming your skin and eyes. These systems are also designed to produce stronger signals and lower background by illuminating from opposite sides (dual LED matrices) as opposed to illuminating from underneath like most other gel illuminators. In addition, even though the FastGene Blue was developed for use with non-carcinogenic dyes like Midori Green and Sybr Green, the newer FastGene Blue/Green system works just as well with red dyes such as GelRed and even ethidium bromide! LEDs are safer, more stable, more reliable and more efficient than traditional UV bulbs making the FastGene Illuminators very compact and extraordinarily durable.

Blue/Green Illumination vs UV Illumination

UV-Light: good signal, unhealthy side-effects
UV-light transilluminators use a single wavelength for the visualization of DNA. Red and green DNA dyes, such as ethidium bromide or Midori Green dyes have a good absorption in the UV-light spectrum. This results in DNA bands with sufficient intensity, however, UV-light is dangerous for the user and for the sample DNA. Just 30 seconds of UV-light exposure significantly reduces the cloning efficiency and has consequences for downstream applications. For this reason, visualization of DNA with UV-light is not the preferred method.

Images of different gel stains with Blue/Green illumination

Blue/Green (not Blue) LEDs: safe and strong detection of all DNA dyes
In contrast to UV-light, Blue/Green LED technology uses a wide spectrum of light between 470 nm and 520 nm. This range of wavelengths is much broader than emitted by blue LEDs. This light is not harmful for DNA or for the user. Even ethidium bromide or other red DNA dyes with a low absorption in this spectral area show DNA band intensity comparable to UV illumination. The reason for that is the accumulated energy absorption (area under the curve) of the DNA in the Blue/Green spectrum. Green DNA dyes show very high absorption intensity in the Blue/Green light spectrum, leading to DNA bands with superior intensity.

Get your DNA the easy way
With a Fastgene Gel Imager and Midori Green Stain it becomes extremely simple to excise your DNA fragment out of gels. You don’t need to wear protective eyewear, or worry about mutagenic dyes. Switch on the blue LEDs and excise your DNA fragment with our Fastgene Agarose Gel Band Cutter. Fast, precise and totally safe, it’s the 21st century way of working with DNA.

Safer for you and better for your subcloning
By using safe MIDORI Green dyes and safe Blue/Green LED illumination you can improve your subcloning transformation efficiencies by THREE-FOLD. In the example below, a plasmid vector was double digested with suitable restriction enzymes to create two sticky-ended DNA fragments: the lacZ gene (3,536 bp) and the backbone of the vector (4,318 bp). Equal amounts of digested DNA were electrophoresed on 1% agarose gels. The gels were stained with either ethidium bromide or MIDORI Green Direct gel stain according to the corresponding manuals, and then viewed using either a UV transilluminator or the FastGene Blue/Green LED Illuminator, respectively. The two DNA fragments were excised from the gels and purified using a silica membrane based purification kit. The lacZ gene and the vector backbone were re-ligated using T4 DNA ligase transformed into DH5a cells and plated onto selection plates. The total number of blue and white colonies was counted to evaluate cloning efficiency. Each experiment was conducted in triplicate, and the average cloning efficiency was determined. MIDORI Green Direct resulted in a dramatic increase of positive transformants.

Midori Green Can Boost Your Cloning Results!

Ethidium bromide is typically used in conjunction with a strong UV light source to excise DNA bands for purification prior to the ligation reaction. Short-wavelength light is known to cause thymine dimers and damage DNA. The extent of this damage is not always appreciated. High-energy light wreaks havoc on DNA fragments in mere seconds. As can be seen below, cloning efficiency starts to drop after just a 15 second exposure of DNA in a standard agarose gel. After a 30 second exposure, your cloning experiment is all but dead! In contrast, the cloning efficiency of protocols that use blue LEDs or Nippon Genetics’ super-performing Blue/Green LEDs are completely unaffected by this deleterious effect. If your lab can’t to break itself of its ethidium bromide habit, using a Blue/Green LED Illuminator (or imaging system) should still have an immediate positive impact on DNA integrity and cloning efficiency.

UV Transilluminators Kill Cloning Experiments

Oh, the wonderful things Blue/Green LEDs can do!
These blue/green LED illuminators aren’t just for gels. Your lab can detect and image just about anything that fluoresces green or red. For example, below is an image of transformed colonies on petri dishes expressing either GFP- (left) or RFP-fusion proteins (right).