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Please can anyone help me understand electrophoresis?

Hi all

I wonder: since there are 46 chromosomes, each containing 2 chromatids, each chromatid of which consists of one DNA molecule, how many strands would we expect to find spread out on an agarose gel after electrophoresis (of the DNA from a human nucleus)? Is it 46 (number of chromosomes) x 2 (number of chromatids) = 92 strands on the agarose gel? Or, is it 46 (number of chromosomes) x 4 (number of strands per 2 chromatids, i.e. 4 because each chromatid consists of a 2-stranded DNA molecule?) = 184 strands?

I'm really confused!

If anyone could help me out I'd be really grateful!

Thank you :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

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