How do you dry a Urea PAGE!? - desperately need your help! (Feb/27/2008 )

I am running denaturing (urea) polyacryl gels (8M urea, 10% polyacrylamide) with hot RNA. I then need to dry them down to image. I am having an impossible time! the gel really won't dry. it doesn't seem to be the dryer as it is fine for SDS page. I have tried soaking in glycerol, fixing with 20% EtOH/5% acetic acid and both times gel remains really wet! Please help me!! The steps to get the gel take almost 20 hours and then it gets ruined in the drying! please give me your advice, anything!

what type of drier are you using?

what is the thickness of your gel? how does it compare to your sds-page?

if you are using a vacuum gel dryer, maybe your vacuum pump is contaminated and needs cleaning (not pulling a good vacuum).

what is your protocol? how does it differ from that used for sds-page?

i used to dry big, thin sequencing gels.

i would soak them in methanol/acetic acid (fixative) then have them stick to filter paper prior to drying. no glycerol!

the urea should cause no problem (most of it washes away in the fixative).

A heated vacuum gel dryer should do the trick. We do this routinely in my lab.

then this apparatus should be decontaminated after... it's ok for S35, but for p32 i will doubt... also it can be done !
Soaking your gel in 30% methanol (same as coomassie stain without the blue color...) should be more drying then you can go for gel dryer.