Hi Haitham,

I recommend you to take a look at this website, you'll find probably your stuff.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/molecular-biology/nucleic-acid-electrophoresis/dyes-and-stains.html

Good luck

Greg

Hello Haitham,

There are many alternatives to ethidium bromide. Probably the best for low toxicity would be the SYBR Safe dyes from Life Technologies (long ago Hoagland set up Molecular Probes as a company to develop all types of dyes. That company has been swallowed by multiple bigger fish and is now part of Life Tech and will soon be part of Thermo-Fisher). Sybr safe is not considered a hazardous waste by US regulators.

I strongly urge you and anyone else who has an intersst in dyes to get a copy of the latest Molecular Probes Handbook (http://www.lifetechnologies.com/us/en/home/references/molecular-probes-the-handbook.html). You will find that it has a wealth of knowledge. I used to page through mine constantly.

Best of luck.

Joe

Your question is completely similar to the post created by Veeramanikandan R. with 4097 views and 176 answers:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anyone_suggest_alternatives_for_ethidium_bromide_in_terms_of_a_non-toxic_DNA_staining_dye

I used SYBR Green in the Comet Assay, if that's helpful. I suppose it can be used for other applications.

I use SYBR safe

http://www.lifetechnologies.com/order/catalog/product/S33102

I use Syto BC but Sybr safe is also a good option:

http://www.lifetechnologies.com/order/catalog/product/S34855

As Pedro stated, any dye that detects nucleic acids probably has some toxicity to it. When I've used both syto bc and sybr safe we always poured our stain over an activated carbon column (literally just bought activated carbon at a fish/pet store and put it in a funnel with a coffee filter) and disposed of the carbon via hazardous waste after it was used on a gallon or so of dye.