How To Read Protein Gels | MCAT Content

A lot of MCAT books will tell you how gels work but none really address how to read them. In this video, we will cover the ins and outs of reading native, SDS, and SDS-reducing gels.
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:10 - Gel Overview
00:01:24 - Gel Types
00:03:06 - Protein Terminology For Gels
00:05:50 - Reading Example Gels
00:13:01 - Gel Patterns Summary
00:14:50 - Reading More Gels
00:21:05 - Practice Problem

[@Sunnysir9]

Dude you’re the best MCAT TUTOR CHANNEL FR

[@dabuaqel]

This is by far the BEST EXPLANATION I have ever seen on reading protein gels! Thanks for showing all the different ways we could expect to see this question on our actual exam.. SUPER helpful!!!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Glad it was helpful!

[@lauraashley2933]

Guys, watch this before you do the AAMC section bank- this will help you with a lot of the questions and it will be great practice!

[@mxdnfrtti]

such a thorough breakdown, thank you!!

[@user-rc8du5ut5y]

This was so incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!

[@maevemurphy7902]

This is by far the best video I've seen on this. Definitely going to be sharing with others, thank you so much!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Glad you found the video helpful and thanks for sharing it with others!

[@angelli9326]

thank you, i lost a lot of hope while doing my most recent practice test so close to the exam, but this stuff encourages me again (,:

[@demanishikomba8667]

Great video!

[@Squidicus]

These videos are incredibly useful, and the questions at the end are fantastic for framing how the mcat will ask about this information. Thanks for all your work.

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Glad you are finding the videos helpful! Application of concepts is so important on the MCAT so I always want to make sure you can walk away from a video not only with an understanding of the topic but also how to apply that information.

[@nedaq8530]

this is literally the best video ever explaining everything clearly, thank you!!!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Thank you!

[@basharalsamman754]

U are amazing , thank you so much

[@kiraney919]

Super helpful!! Just watched all your videos😆. I love your colorful&concise illustrations and sample questions. My fav part is that all the topics are problem-solving oriented.

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Glad you like them!

[@johnpan8835]

So easy to understand the concept!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

That's always my hope. I am glad you found the video helpful.

[@sunairaahmed3720]

This is amazing! TY for this. If you could, it would mean so much if you could make more videos talking about lab techniques related to the MCAT and how to read them/etc. It would be super helpful for the B/B section passage based questions!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Sure thing! Is there any specific techniques you would like to see first? I do have an NMR spectra video in the works at present.

[@sunairaahmed3720]

@@EightfoldMCAT To be honest...most of the techniques, if not all would be nice to see visually. It's harder for me to understand since I never got to see any of these types of experiments in person due to the pandemic, so everything was just written out in words for my labs, and it's a bit hard to understand (I'm also more of a visual learner). If you don't mind of course, it would be super helpful!

[@kevinchou1280]

very good, practical videos.

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Glad you think so!

[@MalakAlrubaye]

[@brandonkhalil8907]

More videos please on B/B !!! maybe carbohydrates, metabolism, memorizing AA, Biology organ systems!!!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

I have some videos in the works and will ad those topics you listed to my list of to dos. I just got a puppy so I am a bit behind with MCAT content unfortunately.

[@legendfowl7705]

i love you

[@FrontierThesisYU]

This video is absolutely phenomenal. Thank you so much. It really amazes me that I didn’t come across this type of reasoning ANYWHERE in my content review with Kaplan and Anki. One thing that bothers me is the insecurity of not knowing if this is “everything” that one needs to know about protein gels for the MCAT, since I have no idea where I can even find this information consolidated in one place in an authoritative source elsewhere, such as a textbook, and confirm that there aren’t 5 other types that we need to know besides Native, SDS, and SDS-Reducing. Do you have any advice on how to get over that insecurity/be more confident about that type of thing, Mr. Eightfold? Because I can spend the next hour wasting time trying to see if there’s ANYTHING ELSE that I need to know about protein gels and try to plug those “imaginary holes”, if you understand what I’m saying.

[@FrontierThesisYU]

Also, I’m curious about how you knew to make these specific videos. Did you do a bunch of MCAT problems, notice specific types of problems, and just consolidate them into a video? What was your creative process for these? Meaning, how did you know: 1) which videos to make; 2) which content to cover in each video?

[@EightfoldMCAT]

The MCAT covers a bunch of material and to some degree there is always going to be stuff that we don’t know that is on the exam. I know I have content gaps and I have been tutoring the exam for over 6 years full time now. So not knowing everything is the norm for a test this exhaustive. Our goal is to know as much as we can and to make sure we have the critical big picture stuff down. The first thing I would recommend is always trying to tie things back to what you know and the concepts you have already learned. That way when you encounter questions that ask about more detailed things you are learning how to use your bigger picture knowledge to answer those questions and are applying what you already know to get to the answer. Working on this skills allows you to reduce the amount of “trivia facts” you have to memorize and helps you better approach MCAT problems. Frequently there is a way to leverage larger concepts to answer the question in front of you rather than having to have a specific fact memorized. If you are already doing practice problems and always feel like you need to keep memorizing more facts I would definitely see if you can go back though some of these sets and look for that bigger concept that helps you answer the problem (I should really make a video on this sometimes…) For example, this video is 100% based in how gels work and the content that is in the books about each. The application is hard for people to learn so I am teaching it here explicitly, but all of what is in this video is based on the content you have probably already seen. In terms of imaginary holes don’t stress too much about those and keep doing practice problems. As you notice things you don’t know plug those holes to the best of your ability and make room to study just a little beyond the MCAT (think 5 minutes instead of 1 hour). Basically, just a little further in depth than the content that you need to know to plug that hole. This might look like referring back to a portion of what you read in a Kaplan book and critically thinking about how you saw that material show up in the questions you were working on.

[@EightfoldMCAT]

I have seen the AAMC material way too much, to the point of being able to know where to find an AAMC question in all of the material from a description. I have also done almost all of the major 3rd party practice exams, too many question bank problems, etc. At some point certain themes become super receptive and there are some concepts that seem to cause problems for the majority of my students. I create videos based on the repetitive themes and questions. From there I think about how I usually teach the material, do more background research to see if there is more that I want to add, think about the questions I have already seen on the topic, workshop my current ideas on the topic, and outline the video. Then I write questions, start making the script, etc.

[@ayeshak2280]

Your page is HIGH YIELD! Thank you for making these videos :)

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Thank you!!! Glad you like the videos.

[@Mssejalmehta]

Thank you so much for your videos. They are super helpful and I find them very beneficial in learning strategy and approach to questions since that is what I find the most difficult. I was wondering if you could do a video on CARS on an approach to timing on the real test, mapping passages and specifically approaching weaken/strengthen, inference, and application questions? Thank you so much for your time

[@EightfoldMCAT]

Hi Sejal, I am glad you are finding the videos helpful! Currently I am finishing up a video on how to read CARS passages so I will definitely get that out here soon. Then I will start working on another CARS video on how to approach question the script is almost finished for that video so that is in the pipeline too. I probably won’t cover specific question types in that video, but I don’t change my approach between different types of questions for the most part. So most of what I cover in that video should be helpful for weaken/strengthen, inference, and application questions.

[@pludo645]

for the last example, would we not have 2 15kDa form a protein using sulfide bonds? And then 3 of these protein subunits would make up the entire protein, making it a homotrimer? I was just a little confusing on determining the number of subunits because I wasn't sure how sulfide bonds impacted that so I would greatly appreciate any clarification. Thanks!

[@EightfoldMCAT]

When a protein is subjected to SDS-PAGE under reducing conditions it will be completely broken apart. So in this case the original 90 kDa protein gets broken down into 15 kDa pieces. In order for the original weight of the protein to match up there would have to be a total of 6 subunits at 15 kDa each to equal the original 90 kDa weight. So we know that this is a hexamer. Your reasoning is really close. I think you are just missing how the math adds up in the way you are viewing it. You are right those 30 kDa pieces of the protein are breaking into two 15 kDa pieces. You are also right when you say that the full 90 kDa was broken into three pieces. So we have three pieces that break into two pieces each for a total of six pieces. All of them are the same size and we can then suppose they are identical pieces then. How the subunits are held together must be different because they didn’t all break up in the SDS only condition, but ultimately they are all the same size and therefore likely to be the same subunits thus it is a homohexamer. Hope that clears things up! These questions can be a bit tricky.

[@pludo645]

@@EightfoldMCAT ah ok that makes more sense. Thank you so much!

[@Karen-tu9ks]

Can you make a video on how to interpret Western Blots?

[@EightfoldMCAT]

That video is actually in the works now! Should be posted this upcoming week.

[@GhilledM21]

thank you dude. you are right. everyone talks about the differences and how they work but nobody talks about how to actually interpret and answer a damn question for the test

[@GhilledM21]

there are many more examples of topics on the mcat that are exactly like this. I would say most of it is like this. even if you know what a certain thing is and its definition, it doesn't mean you'll be able to recognize and apply it during the mcat. its very frustrating and you've cleared a ton of my frustrations about this topic. every video regarding mcat topics should be like this. what is it, and how to apply it via a question.