Some risk and safety phrases may not have been replaced and therefore have no corresponding hazard or precautionary statements. Further information on hazard and precautionary statements. EB may cause extreme eye and skin irritation. It can be absorbed through the skin and contribute to chronic health effects. There is no data available to allow conclusive assessment as to whether or not this chemical would be likely to cause an allergic skin reaction.
If ingested it may cause gastrointestinal irritation with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Inhalation is a major hazard that may result in fatality, lesser causal effects are respiratory tract irritation and methemoglobinemia, which is characterised by dizziness, drowsiness, headache, shortness of breath, cyanosis bluish discoloration of skin due to deficient oxygenation of the blood , rapid heart rate and chocolate-brown blood.
Chronic health effects are methemoglobinemia and alteration of genetic material. Animal experiment evidence points to the possibility of carcinogenic and teratogenic effects. As EB is so strongly mutagenic with the strong possibility of carcinogenic and teratogenic effect pregnant workers should not work with EB.
If practical you must use a safer, less hazardous alternative examples given at top of page. In the unlikely case of a less hazardous alternative not being a practical approach you should take cognisance of the following good practice.
Ethidium Bromide - Good Working Practices. If your School has a dedicated spill response team you should call them out. Otherwise proceed as follows:. The following solution must be prepared immediately prior to use and can be used to decontaminate equipment and work areas. The solution should be prepared in a fume cupboard as a small amount of nitrogen dioxide may be given off when the solution is initially mixed.
One bag has the capacity to remove 5 mg of ethidium bromide from solutions. Solutions are treated overnight; the special absorbant mixture retains ethidium bromide molecules and other biological stains in the bag. This product is also available in Biochemistry Stores Gels, used solution filters, and other solid ethidium bromide contaminated materials are collected by EHS for disposal.
EHS distributes a container to be used for collection of these wastes. Aqueous solutions of ethidium bromide that do not contain other hazardous chemicals should be filtered or collected by EHS.
Solutions of ethidium bromide that also contain alcohols or other solvents, heavy metals, cyanides, sulfides or other hazardous chemicals must be disposed as hazardous waste. Gloves, test tubes, paper towels, etc. These products are widely used as alternatives to ethidium bromide and do not require special handling for disposal.
Skip to main content. The University of Iowa Search. You are here Home. Purpose and Applicability Ethidium bromide is commonly used as a non-radioactive marker for identifying and visualizing nucleic acid bands in electrophoresis. Contact information and areas of expertise can be found on the Contact Us page Hazards Because ethidium bromide can bind with DNA, it is highly toxic as a mutagen.
Handling When pure ethidium bromide is used, handling should be performed in a fume hood wearing full protection clothing including a lab coat, closed-toe shoes, chemical resistant gloves and chemical safety goggles. If swallowed, get medical attention immediately.
A number of safer nucleic acid labels suitable for use in electrophoresis are available on the market. GelRed and GelGreen, for example, have improved safety over ethidium bromide. Initial mutagenicity tests on the dyes — conducted by both the manufacturer, Biotium, and externally by Litron Laboratories, a material toxicity test company — indicate that GelRed and GelGreen both have either undetectable or very weak mutagenic effect in the absence or presence of rat liver extracts S9.
These dyes were designed with safety in mind. It was reasoned that for a DNA dye to be mutagenic, it must be able to cross the cell membrane. Thus, as a first line of defence, an innovative structure was used for the gel stain molecule making it extremely difficult to cross cell membranes.
In addition, it was recognised that once a DNA dye enters a cell it might be subject to metabolism which could convert the dye into a chemical that could be either more mutagenic as in the case of ethidium bromide or less mutagenic than the unmetabolised original.
Thus, as a second line of defence, chemical bonds were incorporated at strategic positions in the dye molecule so that on enzymatic cleavage the dyes will become very weak DNA-binding molecules. Using the standard Ames test, as measured in two bacterial strains, both GelRed and GelGreen were confirmed to be substantially safer than ethidium bromide see box.
It is believed these unique structural features are at least partially responsible for the observed low mutagenicity and low cytotoxicity of GelRed and GelGreen. But does improving safety mean compromising on results? Figure 1: Agarose gels precast with GelRed or ethidium bromide Sensitivity: as shown in Figure 1, GelRed is significantly more sensitive than ethidium bromide in precast gels for detection of low-level DNA, especially in the lower molecular weight area.
Stability: both GelGreen and, in particular, GelRed are so stable that the 10,x stock solutions of the dyes can be routinely stored at room temperature. The dyes in TBE or a similar electrophoresis buffer can also be heated in the microwave oven, making them compatible with the common procedure used in making precast gels.
Furthermore, precast gels made with the dyes can be produced in bulk and stored for later use.
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