Question

Which of the DNAs shown in Figure 24-8 would move fastest during agarose gel electrophoresis?

Short answer

Tightly supercoiled DNAs move quicker than loosely supercoiled DNAs through the agarose matrix.

Step-by-step solution

Define Agarose gel electrophoresis.

Agarose gel electrophoresisis a type of gel electrophoresisbeing used in biochemistry, molecular biology, heredity, and clinical diagnosticsto isolate a diverse population of macromolecules including DNA or proteins in an agarose matrix,one of the two primary components of agar.

The process during Agarose gel electrophoresis.

Agarose gel electrophoresis employs an agarose matrix with a variety of hole sizes. The mobility of molecules is determined by their size and charge. All of the DNAs in Figure 24-8 are assumed to have the same quantity of nucleotides.

Tightly supercoiled DNA moves faster.

The faster a molecule goes through an agarose gel, the smaller it is. The size of tightly supercoiled DNA is smaller than that of loose DNA.

Hence, because of their tiny size, tightly supercoiled DNAs move quicker than loosely supercoiled DNAs through the agarose matrix.