Phosphate Buffer 0.5M, pH 7.0

Phosphate buffer has a concentration of 0.5M and a pH of 7.0. It contains a mixture of monobasic dihydrogen sodium phosphate and a dibasic monohydrogen sodium phosphate. Phosphates have a high buffering capacity and are soluble in water. They inhibit many enzymatic reactions and procedures of molecular cloning. Phosphates also precipitate in ethanol making it impossible to precipitate DNA and RNA from buffers that contain large amounts of phosphate ions.