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. 1979 Aug 10;6(11):3535–3542. doi: 10.1093/nar/6.11.3535

Selective staining by 4', 6-diamidine-2-phenylindole of nanogram quantities of DNA in the presence of RNA on gels.

J Kapuściński, K Yanagi
PMCID: PMC327954  PMID: 493114

Abstract

4', 6-Diamidine-2-phenylindole.2HCl (DAPI) forms fluorescent complexes with double-stranded (ds) DNA but not with ds RNA as shown by fluorescence titration. The widely used dye ethidium bromide (EB) forms fluorescent complexes with both types of nucleic acids. Also, in contrast to EB, DAPI forms much weaker fluorescent complexes with single-stranded DNA than with ds DNA. These observations were utilized to develop staining procedures for the selective visualization of ds DNA on gels. The use of DAPI in addition to EB for staining makes possible the localization of ds DNA and other species of nucleic acids on a single gel.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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