Lab Work

In the lab Benedicts Reagent is used to find reducing sugars in food samples that have carbohydrate macromolecules. Benedicts Reagent contains copper and sulphate that gives the solution a blue color. If  added to the food sample it shows a reddish orange color, it means carbohydrates are present because they reduced the copper in the reagents mixture. 

Gel electrophoresis is an instrument used in this experiment for extracting DNA. When DNA is taken from the ants and it is stained with dye to better see its movement, the solution of DNA and the staining variant are put into gel wells. Agarose gel is used to separate DNA fragments.  Sense the phosphate backbone of DNA is negatively charged when placed in the gel electrophoresis the negative molecules will be attracted to the positively charged anode. When the DNA fragments are pulled apart, UV lights will be used to visualize the DNA. The gel electrophoreses will tell us the different lengths and fragments of DNA in the ants. 

Materials used in this lab were the Compound Microscope/Light Microscope and varies glass slides of examples of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In this picture a plant cell is shown. Using the microscope my teammates and I were able to observe the plant cells structure on high and low magnification.