Taking Macromolecules to Micro! (M3014)

Take a look at your next meal and you will not only see the tasty cheese, pasta, broccoli, or whatever is on your plate, but you will also see carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and DNA! These four key biological macromolecules are critical to the functions in our cells to keep us going. In this microscaled lab activity, students can test for starch and glucose in addition to protein, lipids and DNA, without the need for large volumes of reagents, cleaning test tubes, boiling reagents, and finally a simple way to test for DNA!

Students will perform the starch, glucose and protein assays on an assay plate instead of in a tube and use their pipettes to test a sample and a control. To test for DNA, students will make use of a fluorescent DNA stain commonly used in electrophoresis and visualize under blue light to observe if the sample fluoresces or not. Visualization can be done quickly on The Winston Fluorescence Reader

Take the DNA activity to the next level with a DNA extraction activity where students can extract DNA from various foods and even optimize the reagent mix to get more DNA, and visualize on The Winston.

The entire lab can be completed in the span of a single classroom period.

Ideal for middle, secondary school and university students.

Each MiniLab contains enough materials for 10 workstations, 2 – 3 students per workstation.

Materials Included in each MiniLab:

• Testing reagents and samples: Benedict’s, Glucose, Iodine, Starch, Biuet, Protein Powder, GelGreen, Lambda DNA
• One bag of 0.65 mL microcentrifuge tubes
• One bag of 2 – 200 µL micropipette tips

Equipment required but not included:

• The Winston Fluorescence Reader
• Microwave
• M2008 p20 pipette

Supporting Documents