LB buffer, also known aslithium borate buffer, is abuffer solution used in agaroseelectrophoresis, typically for the separation ofnucleic acids such asDNA andRNA. It is made up ofLithium borate (lithium hydroxide monohydrate andboric acid).
LB(R) is a registered (USPTO) trademark of Faster Better Media LLC, which owns US patent 7,163,610 covering low-conductance lithium borate polynucleotide electrophoresis.
Lithium Borate buffer has a lowerconductivity, produces crisper resolution, and can be run at higher speeds than can gels made fromTBE orTAE (5-50 V/cm as compared to 5-10 V/cm). At a given voltage, the heat generation and thus the gel temperature is much lower than with TBE/TAE buffers, therefore the voltage can be increased to speed up electrophoresis so that a gel run takes only a fraction of the usual time.[1] Downstream applications, such as isolation of DNA from a gel slice orSouthern blot analysis, work as expected with lithium boric acid gels.[2][3]
SB buffer containingsodium borate is similar to lithium borate and has nearly all of its advantages at a somewhat lower cost, but the lithium buffer permits use of even higher voltages due to the lower conductivity of lithium ions as compared to sodium ions and has a better resolution for fragments above 4kb.
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