In vitro tests on various cultured cell lines and embryo systems showed that ethidium bromide can cause frame-shift mutations, chromosomal recombination, arrested cell division and developmental problems. So can we use safer compound instead of ethidium bromide in agarose gel electrophoresis ?
good question but it is not in my specialty. i hope another researcher can answer this question. regards
You can use SYBR™ Safe DNA Gel Stain which is extremely sensitive stain for visualization of DNA in agarose or acrylamide gels. SYBR Safe stain is exclusively formulated to be a less hazardous substitute to ethidium bromide that you can use with either blue-light or UV excitation.
SYBR Safe is one of the best options you have and the safest for your experiment.
SYBR safe is a good alternative, You can also use SYTO® 60 which is a Red fluorescent nucleic acid stain if u have detection facilities like Odyssey Imaging Systems.It is very safe and easy to use. following links might help
http://www.licor.com/bio/blog/applications/proteomics-applications/is-dna-gel-documentation-important-to-you/attachment/dnagel
https://www.thermofisher.com/in/en/home/life-science/dna-rna-purification-analysis/nucleic-acid-gel-electrophoresis/dna-stains/sybr-safe/sybr-safe-faq.html
http://www.bonsaiadvanced.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/Biociencias/Odyssey%20FC/AppNote_OdyFc_ImagingDNAGels_0911_12443.pdf
In fact there is no direct evidence implicating ethidium bromide as a carcinogen in any animal. For many years, ethidium bromide has been routinely administered for the treatment of African Sleeping Sickness in cattle. The recommended, apparently non-toxic, dose of ethidium bromide is 1mg/kg of body weight in cattle. A 50kg researcher would need to drink 50,000 liters(1 microgram/litre) of gel-staining solution to get even the non-toxic dose used in cattle.
Hi,
SimplySafe™ (Eurx)is a safe nucleic acid stain, an alternative to the traditional ethidium bromide (EtBr) stain for detecting nucleic acid in agarose gels.
http://www.eurx.com.pl/ow_userfiles/plugins/wysiwygeditor/images/2/SimplySafe.pdf
https://www.thermofisher.com/in/en/home/life-science/dna-rna-purification-analysis/nucleic-acid-gel-electrophoresis/dna-stains/sybr-safe/sybr-safe-faq.html
Great to know..as never thought that sybr green could be used in conventional PCR
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