Normally, I have 0.5 x TBE buffer running at 14C, and the cooling module keeps the buffer at this temperature. Ours seems to be broken, since it is not making the clicking noise it usually does, and the temperature keeps rising (went from 18C to 26C in 1 hr with cooling module & pump on, program not running). I can hear a motor running in the module, and it is warm when touched. Anyways, a new one is about $4000 and may not come for a while. Could I just run the CHEF gel in a 4C cold room?
I don't know too much about the effect of temperature on the eletrophoresis, just that we have the chiller so that the buffer doesn't overheat and melt the gel. I want to run a 24hr program, so that seems like a real possibility without some kind of cooling. Would it make a difference in my results if I ran it at 4C (stick the entire apparatus in cold room) instead of 14C?
the trouble with chef is that it separates very large fragmetns of dna. Cooling platens are used because circulating water can remove huge amounts of heat. If you had to run chef without cooling the gel would melt unless you used a very low voltage ( chef can run at up to 9v/cm and that will be a problem and with a low voltage the bands would take weeks to run through the gel unless your fragments are really quite small so I think your best chance is an all users email at your institute ( or ask your lab manager) to see if anyone else has a cooler or chef apparatus that you can borrow. You could pour a gel and run it in the cold room with no samples loaded to see what your usual voltage does to the gel or even forget the gel and just run buffer and check its increase in temperature with time
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