I have tried several times now, samples look alright, but the ladder keeps turning out like shown in photo. Tried 3 different ladders now (ladder mix and 1kb plus) and they all turn out like this. The samples are colony PCR (cloning) and I run them at 110V for around 35 min. This has worked many times before. Could it be the agarose gel?
Thank you.
Your samples are smiling which often suggests too much salt in the sample with loading buffer. and the samples have run a long way .I would borrow a ladder and run it and yours and run for a shorter time and lower voltage. If the gel is heating up and becoming soft this will effect the ladder resolution. If the voltage is too high then ghe running buffer in the tank will be hot at the end of the run
What proportion of agarose do you employ when creating gel?
Your product appears to be 200bp in size, so using a 100bp Ladder with an agarose range of 1.2% to 1.5% would produce better results than a 1kb Ladder. Ine Holand
You can also get this if the electrophoresis equipment is dirty (usually from dried on salts).
Try washing your gel combs, box, etc. with mild detergent and rinsing really well.
Your wells also look a bit "wobbly/mis-shapen". Make sure the gel is entirely solidified before you remove the combs.
Good luck!
My agarose is 1%.
Thank you so much for all inputs, I will try out a lower voltage and see if that can work out.
After decreasing the voltage my ladder was fine, thank you Paul Rutland for your help.
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