I'm combining alginate with polyacrylamide. Alginate will be crosslinked with Ca+2, within polyacrylamide. Once I have a gel, I would like to digest small amounts of alginate without any structural damage or interference to the polyacrylamide gel.
At this moment in time, the only enzyme I can find which can digest alginate is alginate lyase. Are there other enzymes which I can use?
I did not use any enzyme, but Na-citrate (e.g. 1.5w/w water solution) as well as phosphate buffer (e.g. phosphate buffered saline-PBS) could be good solutions for Ca-alginate degradation.
To dissolve alginate gels, usually a (55mM, pH=6.8) sodium citrate solution is used. However, I'm not sure if this solution might effect polyacrylamide.
Well, it seems like you need to try this out, too. Maybe you could play with the concentrations?
Keep us updated and good luck!
Along with sodium citrate, EDTA also works well (50 mM upwards).
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