Advanced polymers for DNA separation

✍ Scribed by Valessa Barbier; Jean-Louis Viovy

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 252 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0958-1669
• DOI: 10.1016/s0958-1669(02)00007-1

✦ Synopsis

Recent research to improve matrices for DNA separation has resulted in the development of advanced polymers for use in capillary electrophoresis and, more generally, for electrophoresis in microchannels. To date, the most commonly used matrix is linear polyacrylamide (LPA). Unfortunately, the high-molecular weight LPA solutions required for achieving good resolution lead to very viscous solutions. Moreover, the coating ability of LPA is very poor. For these reasons, many research groups have developed low-viscosity matrices, which make microchannel filling easier, and self-coating matrices, which are able to reduce efficiently the electro-osmotic flow and the interaction of DNA with the capillary wall. To this purpose, thermo-adjustable viscosity polymers represent a very clever and interesting class of matrices.