What is the advantage of running an analytical gel with fractions of my plasmid preparation?

Running fractions saved from each step in the plasmid preparation procedure on an agarose gel enables monitoring the performance of each crucial step in the protocol. If the plasmid DNA is of low yield or quality, the samples can be analyzed to determine at what stage of the purification procedure the difficulty occurred.

Aliquots can be taken from the cleared lysate and the flow-throughs as indicated in the relevant protocols, precipitated with isopropanol and resuspended in a small volume of TE buffer.

Please see the Troubleshooting Section of the QIAprep Miniprep Handbook and Appendix A of the QIAGEN Plasmid Purification Handbook for instructions, and a picture and legend explaining the typical results you may see. You can also access this information on our Plasmid Resource Pages.