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From: eesnyder@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Ethidium Br
Message-ID: <13854@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 14 Nov 89 15:03:42 GMT
References: <60608@tiger.oxy.edu> <1030@uwm.edu>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: eesnyder@beagle.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 27

In article <1030@uwm.edu> stevelee@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (The Anti-Theist Named Steve) writes:
>	But, to be honest, I would think a strong mutagen like ethidium
>	bromide, which interferes with replication by getting into the
>	spaces between the strands of the double helix, causing a 
>	misreading in the replication and transcription process.  
>
>	Where ethidium bromide would be better as a weapon is that:
>
>	(a) it needs no outside solvent to do some serious mutagenic
>	    damage.

Ok, net people, just how dangerous is ethidium bromide?  I get shit in the 
lab constantly for slopping my gel buffers all over the place.... I under-
stand that it was used in vet medicine for a time as against trypanosomes...
in fact, the Merck Index even reports it as being "bitter tasting".  How
does it compare to real nasty compounds like benzanthracenes and nitrosomines?
Is this just another case of oversensitive molecular biologists?  Funny
how no one seems to be bothered much by 32P!

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TTGATTGCTAAACACTGGGCGGCGAATCAGGGTTGGGATCTGAACAAAGACGGTCAGATTCAGTTCGTACTGCTG
Eric E. Snyder                            
Department of Biochemistry              Proctoscopy recapitulates   
University of Colorado, Boulder         hagiography.            
Boulder, Colorado 80309                  
LeuIleAlaLysHisTrpAlaAlaAsnGlnGlyTrpAspLeuAsnLysAspGlyGlnIleGlnPheValLeuLeu
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