Candy Electrophoresis Lab

1.  Two of our group's dyes did not look normal.  The first dye was our green dye.  Instead of having one dye in one place, there was a blue dye and a yellow dye at two different spots.  The blue dye was in the same place as the sample and the yellow dye was in the same place as the sample as well.  Our group's brown dye looked a little off.  Instead of showing one distinct spot of where the dye is, there is a faded spot of where the dye might have ended.  The space between the final spot and the starting spot had a trail of red colored dye.  These two dyes that had errors could be another kind of dye other than the four that our group observed.

2.  I think that the carminic acid would be the brown dye because the structure of the carminic acid seemed stretched out just like our brown dye.  The betanin (beetroot red) would be the red dye because the color of the dye is red and red is in the name of the dye.  The fast green FCF would be the green dye because the name says green, so the dye is probably going to be a green-like color.  Lastly, the citrus red 2 would be the yellow dye because I think of yellow as a red-like color but not exactly red.

3.  I think the main reason manufacturers put artificial food coloring in dog food to make the food look more appealing to the dog eating the food.  Also, enhancing the color of the dog food makes the dog owner attracted to how good the product looks.

4.  The main reason artificial food colors are preferred over natural colors is because of the appearance.  The overall look of the food really influences how much the person eating feels.  For example, eating a brown apple is much worse than eating a ripe red apple.

5.  The two factors that control the distance the solutions migrate are if the pieces are larger or smaller and the amount of electricity the gel is receiving.  Larger solutions tend to travel slower and less and smaller solutions tend to travel longer.

6.  The electrical current causes the solutions to move through the gel.

7.  The components of the electrophoresis system to separate by size are the gel lanes and the amount of voltage running into the gel because it determines how fast the short size solutions are going and how slow the large are.

8.  The 600 Dalton DNA solution would move the farthest, the 1000 Dalton DNA solution would move the second farthest, the 1200 Dalton DNA solution would move the third farthest, and the 5000 Dalton DNA solution would move the least.  The 600 Dalton DNA solution would move the farthest because it is the lightest and the 5000 Dalton DNA solution would move the least because it is the heaviest.