Request Quote or Bulk Order Product Description
GelGreen® is a highly sensitive, non-toxic green fluorescent nucleic acid dye designed for staining DNA in agarose gels.
- Non-mutagenic, for safer handling and easy disposal
- Much more sensitive than EtBr, SYBR® Safe, and others
- Extremely stable for storage at room temperature & microwaving in agarose
- Simple precast or post-electrophoresis gel staining
- Use with UV transilluminator or blue light gel reader
- Compatible with downstream gel purification, restriction digest, sequencing and cloning
GelGreen®: A Superior Green Fluorescent DNA Gel Stain
GelGreen® is far more sensitive than SYBR® Safe. Unlike SYBR® dyes, which are known to be unstable, GelGreen® is very stable, both hydrolytically and thermally. GelGreen® is compatible with a 254 nm UV transilluminator, and can be imaged using a SYBR® Green or GelStar® filter. It also can be used with visible blue light excitation imagers (blue LED light box or Dark Reader®). With blue light illuminators, researchers can avoid exposure to UV irradiation for themselves and their DNA samples, for a safer work environment and higher cloning efficiency.
Non-Mutagenic and Safer for the Environment
A series of safety tests have confirmed that GelGreen® is noncytotoxic, nonmutagenic and nonhazardous at concentrations above those used for gel staining. As a result, working strength GelGreen® can be safely disposed of down the drain or in regular trash, providing convenience and reducing cost in waste disposal. For detailed test results, you may download a complete GelRed®/GelGreen® Safety Report.
How Safe is Your Gel Stain?
Many so-called “safe” DNA dyes like SYBR® Safe, Midori Green, GreenSafe, SafeView™, and RedSafe™ not only have low sensitivity, but also readily penetrate living cells to bind DNA, and some are cytotoxic. Unlike these dyes, GelGreen® is cell membrane-impermeant, so it cannot enter living cells to interact with their DNA. See our Gel Stains Comparison Flyer or Gel Stains Comparison White Paper for details.
Your Top GelRed® and GelGreen® Questions Answered
Choose the Right Stain for Your Application
For new users, we recommend GelGreen® 10,000X in water (catalog no. 41005), our latest formulation that eliminates the hazards of handling DMSO for better safety. We continue to offer GelGreen® 10,000X solution in DMSO for established users who do not wish to change their existing laboratory protocols. We also offer GelGreen® Agarose for convenient and safer preparation of precast gels. Also see GelRed® Nucleic Acid Gel Stain, our safer replacement for ethidium bromide. GelGreen® can be used to stain ssDNA and RNA, but we recommend GelRed® for this application because it is five times more sensitive for single stranded nucleic acids than GelGreen®. Also learn about DNAzure® 2.0 Visible Blue DNA Gel Stain Kit for visualizing DNA bands with the naked eye with no need for a UV light source. DNAzure® 2.0 delivers excellent sensitivity, detecting as little as ~1 ng of double-stranded DNA in both agarose and polyacrylamide gels.
| Product / Method | Procedure | Advantages | Disadvantages | Recommended for |
| DNA staining with EMBER™ Ultra DNA Gel Kit | Agarose is supplied pre-coated with EMBER™ Ultra Dye, just dissolve, heat, and pour. | • Safer and more convenient, no need to handle concentrated dye
• Superior sensitivity, detect as little as ≤1 ng DNA
• No need for post-electrophoresis staining
• Optimal for blue LED gel imagers | • Not suitable for PAGE, DGGE, EMSA, or PFGE gels
• Dye may cause band migration issues when loading larger amounts of DNA (more than ~200 ng/band), or for some restriction digests | • Routine agarose gels |
| RNA staining with EMBER™ Ultra RNA Gel Kit | Agarose is supplied pre-coated with EMBER™ Ultra Dye, just dissolve, heat, and pour. | • Safer and more convenient stain for RNA, no need to handle concentrated dye
• Superior sensitivity, detect as little as ≤5 ng RNA
• No need for post-electrophoresis staining
• Included loading dye contains formamide for denaturing
• Optimal for blue LED gel imagers | • Will stain DNA as well as RNA
• Dye may cause band migration issues when loading larger amounts of RNA (more than ~200 ng/band) | • Routine RNA gel electrophoresis
• Evaluate total RNA integrity and DNA contamination |
| DNA prestaining with GelRed® Prestain Plus 6X DNA Loading Dye | GelRed® loading buffer is added directly to the DNA sample before loading | • Fast & simple: one-step sample loading & DNA staining
• Less concentrated dye for safer handling
• Can re-run a gel to use empty lanes
| • Not recommended for PAGE, DGGE, EMSA, or PFGE gels
• Dye may cause band migration issues when loading larger amounts of DNA (more than ~100 ng/band), or for some restriction digests | • Routine agarose gels
• Recommended loading 50-200 ng ladder or 2-5 uL PCR product ( ~100 ng/band or less) |
Precast staining with GelRed® 10,000X in water or GelGreen® 10,000X in water
| GelRed® or GelGreen® is mixed with molten agarose before gel casting | Familiar protocol, rapid results |
Precast staining with GelRed® Agarose LE or GelGreen® Agarose LE
| Agarose is supplied pre-coated with GelRed® or GelGreen®, just dissolve, heat, and pour | Safer & more convenient, no need to handle concentrated dye |
Post-electrophoresis staining with GelRed® 10,000X in water or GelGreen® 10,000X in water
- or -
GelRed® 3X in water
| No fluorescent dye is added to the gel, it is stained in 3X GelRed® or 3X GelGreen® solution after electrophoresis | • Most accurate sizing/sharpest bands
• Staining solution can be re-used
• Enhance sensitivity by adding NaCl | Extra staining step (up to 30 minutes) after electrophoresis (some customers report good results after only 5 minutes if dye is not reused) | • Highly accurate band sizing
• Gels with more than ~100 ng DNA per band
• Analyzing restriction digests |
| Post-electrophoresis staining with DNAzure® 2.0 Visible Blue DNA Gel Stain Kit | No fluorescent dye is added to the gel, it is stained in DNazure® 2.0 solution and then exposed to a bright light source to generate visible blue DNA bands.
We recommend the Glo-Plate™ White Photoactivation Device as a light source for developing DNAzure® 2.0-stained gels | • Allows visualization of DNA bands by the naked eye, no need for a UV light source
• Detect as little as ~1 ng DNA
• Stained bands are stable in gel for weeks
• Also emits near-IR fluorescence (~700 nm) for detection on near-IR imaging systems | Extra staining step (up to 30 minutes) followed by a light exposure step (up to 30 minutes) to generate visible blue DNA bands
| • Routine DNA agarose gels
• Visualizing gels without the UV light or expensive imaging systems
• Recommended loading 50-200 ng DNA per lane |
| Post-electrophoresis staining of PAGE gels using PAGE GelRed® 10,000X or 1X in water | No fluorescent dye is added to the gel, it is stained in 1X PAGE GelRed® solution after electrophoresis | • Formulated for efficient penetration and staining of polyacrylamide gels
• Like the classic GelRed®, it is safe and environmentally friendly | Extra staining step of approx. 30 minutes after electrophoresis | Staining of nucleic acids in PAGE gels |
Biotium also offers the Gel-Bright™ Laser Diode Gel Illuminator, a unique laser-diode-based illuminator that offers sensitive staining for both red and green dyes. Also learn about our Go-Go™ Fast DNA Gel Running Buffer for running gels 3X faster than with TAE or TBE buffer.
For more information, view our DNA Stain technology page, and see our GelRed® & GelGreen® FAQs.
GelGreen® and GelRed® and their uses are covered by granted and/or pending US and International patents. Dark Reader is a registered trademark of Clare Chemical; GelStar is a registered trademark of FMC corporation; RedSafe is a trademark of iNtRON Biotechnology; SafeView is a trademark of Applied Biological Materials; SYBR is aregistered trademark of Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Product Attributes
Size
Trial size (0.1 mL), 0.5 mL, 10 mL
Format
10,000X in water, 10,000X in DMSO
Assay type/options
DNA/RNA gel staining
Documents, Protocols, SDS and COA
Datasheet
Datasheet Download
COARequest the Certificate of Analysis
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