Lithium acetate

Lithium acetate is used in the laboratory as buffer for gel electrophoresis of DNA and RNA.

It has a lower electrical conductivity and can be run at higher speeds than can gels made from TAE buffer (5-30V/cm as compared to 5-10V/cm).

At a given voltage, the heat generation and thus the gel temperature is much lower than with 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.

Lithium boric acid or sodium boric acid are usually preferable to lithium acetate or TAE when analyzing smaller fragments of DNA (less than 500 bp) due to the higher resolution of borate-based buffers in this size range as compared to acetate buffers.

Lithium acetate is also used to permeabilize the cell wall of yeast for use in DNA transformation.

NFPA 704 four-colored diamond Health 2: Intense or continued but not chronic exposure could cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury. E.g. chloroform Flammability 0: Will not burn. E.g. water Instability 0: Normally stable, even under fire exposure conditions, and is not reactive with water. E.g. liquid nitrogen Special hazards (white): no code