SB buffer

Last time when I wanna make agarose gel and run electrophoresis, Ray didn't use TAE or TBE buffer but SB buffer. He said TAE/TBE is expensive. After that I did some brief search about SB buffer and find something below: 1. Tris is the expensive part of TAE/TBE and on the other hand SB is relatively cheaper than those buffers contain Tris. 2. With SB the electrophoresis time can be cut down to 1/3 with high voltage (275V, which is 3-5x of Tris gels!) yet low heat generation than ordinary Tris-based gels. I see some guys run gels at 200V for 0.5hr with the same resolution and separation as 2 hours at 50V in TBE. 3. DNA bands with SB would be sharper than with Tris-based gels.

Tris gel (110V)	SB gel (275V)

4. SB wouldn't salt-out like high concentration TBE normally does. 5. The recipe of SB: NaOH (10mM) pH adjusted to 8.5 with boric acid (works out at ~2.6g/L). That's cheap! # SB is first reported in: Brody JR, Kern SE.(2004).Sodium boric acid: a Tris-free, cooler conductive medium for DNA electrophoresis.36(2):214-6. Erratum in: Biotechniques. 2005 Jan;38(1):60