abm's SafeView products contain fluorescent compounds that have a strong affinity to DNA and RNA nucleic acids. Once bound to nucleic acids, the compound fluoresces under specific wavelength of light which can then be visualized using a standard UV/Blue light imager.

There may be some unknown effects of SafeView products that have not been documented in literature but these would also apply to popular SYBRSafe as well; however, SafeView products are not as carcinogenic as ethidium bromide.

Safe-Red and Safe-Green are in a 6X loading dye format: mix samples and DNA marker with Safe-Red or Safe-Green at a 1:5 (dye : sample) dilution ratio, and load onto an unstained gel.

SafeView Classic and Safe-Red Gel are in a 10,000X format: for pre-cast, add 10µl SafeView Classic or Safe-Red Gel per 100 ml molten agarose, mix gently and cast the gel; for post-stain, prepare and run an unstained agarose gel, next submerge the gel in post-staining solution of 30 μl SafeView Classic or Safe-Red Gel per 100 ml 1X TAE or 1X TBE buffer for 30min in the dark with light agitation, image accordingly.

No, our SafeView products will bind to both double-stranded and single-stranded nucleic acids, albeit with lesser efficiency for single-stranded nucleic acid species.

SafeView Classic, Safe-Red and Safe-Red Gel should be stored at 18-25°C.

Safe-Green should be stored at 4°C.

All SafeView products are compatible with UV or Blue Light imagers. However, Safe-Green and SafeView Classic are more optimally visualized under Blue Light, making these stains safer for the user and their samples.

Our in-house testing has shown that SafeView Classic stained gels (>10ng DNA loaded per lane) can still be effectively visualized up to 1 week later with only a slight decrease in brightness. Gels should be stored properly to maintain a good signal, sealed in a plastic bag with wet paper towel loosely wrapped around the gel, away from light. Similarly, a pre-cast unused SafeView Classic gel can be stored and used up to 1 week after being prepared provided they are stored in ideal conditions (sealed in plastic bag, away from light).

Safe-Green: 0.2-0.6 ng DNA per band

Safe-Red: 0.6-1.0 ng DNA per band

Safe-Red Gel: 0.6-1.0 ng DNA per band

SafeView Classic: 1.0-2.0 ng DNA per band

A pre-cast unused SafeView Classic gel can be stored and used up to 1 week after being prepared provided they are stored in ideal conditions (sealed in plastic bag, away from light). If it is stored longer than a week, there will be decreased resolution.

Dispose SafeView™ Classic as you would any other non-carcinogenic fluorescent dye (eg. Acridine orange; Propidium iodide). All gels and contaminated “non-sharp” lab debris (e.g., gloves, pads, towels, tubes, etc.) that are processed using this dye can be discarded in the trash. Spent running buffer solutions and destaining solutions that contain the dyes can either be collected and disposed of through the HWMU or collected and run through an approved filter device. The buffer solutions that have been run through the approved filter should be checked under the appropriate light source for complete removal of the dyes, and if it passes (does not fluoresce), the liquid can be disposed of down the drain with a copious amount of water as long as no other materials are present that would cause the material to be a Hazardous Waste. The filters that have been used up and are no longer effective must be disposed of through the HWMU.

If using Safe-Green or Safe-Red, you will not need to add any additional loading dyes or buffers. If using SafeView Classic or Safe-Red Gel, you will need to add an appropriate DNA loading dye to your samples in order for samples to properly settle and stay in the wells during electrophoresis.

We recommend using SafeView Classic or Safe-Red Gel which can both be used for the gel extraction of DNA fragments destined for cloning. We have observed no decrease in cloning efficiency using these stains.

Band shifting to a certain degree is unavoidable for any nucleic acid stain as most of these fluorescent compounds are large, positively charged molecules. Loading dye format nucleic acid stains, while convenient, may also suffer from more prominent band shifting due to the stain binding and migrating with the sample simultaneously during electrophoresis. Post-staining, while takes longer to complete, may be the optimal choice of nucleic acid stain strategy if band shifting issue is a priority.

We have observed band shifting with Safe-Green as this issue has been documented in literature to be an inherent property of the specific fluorescent compound. When using Safe-Green we recommend using specific Safe-Green ladders (G473, G474). Alternatively we offer SafeView Classic which we have observed from in house experiments to have no band shifting issues.

It is often difficult to detect smaller 100bp and 200bp bands on a 1% gel especially if samples are of low concentration. We recommend visualizing smaller fragments on a higher concentration gel - ideally 2% agarose.

UV and LED will give the same colors.

All of our SafeView products are compatible with UV and blue light.

10,000X

Any imaging system with UV, Blue light and/or LED should work.