Comb elements rotating in position to place selected slit arrays in the gel of an electrophoresis agarose gel tray, particularly as also serve as spacers between stacked trays

摘要

A spacer-comb element including (i) a longitudinal central axis and (ii) three or more, preferably four, teeth arrays radially extending about the central axis and extending along a length thereof, serves to emplace arrayed slit apertures within flat sheets of a gel state material that is itself suitable to receive samples upon which electrophoresis may be performed. The spacer-comb element is placed between the sidewalls of, and engaged by, a tray holding the gel material in a central reservoir so that the teeth of only a selected one array extend downwards into the tray. An opposite, upwards-extending, teeth array engages the underside of an overlying tray, preferably at an optional complimentary groove feature on the tray's underside, so as to support the tray. A stack of trays and intervening spacer-comb elements is used as a system and in a method for preparing multiple trays of a gel state material, normally an agarose gel, all in one step at the same time, each prepared gel having arrayed slit apertures of selected number(s) and at selected location(s).