小中大The effective ingredient in GoldView is acridine orange (extremely cheap from Aldrich or Sigma at ~100g/$140!)
Acridine orange is a known gel stain since 1970s (“Analysis of single- and double-stranded nucleic acids on polyacrylamide and agarose gels by using glyoxal and acridine orange”. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Nov;74(11):4835-8.
Acridine orange is a highly toxic and known mutagen!
Selected list of papers on acridine orange toxicity:
Web, RB. Mutat Res. 1984 Jul;137(1):1-6.
Wugmeister, M. Yale J Biol Med. 1983 Jan-Feb;56(1):9-13.
Martin, SE. Mutat Res. 1981 Jun;82(1):41-6.
Ashad, R. Letters in Applied Microbiology 2006, 42:94.