Analysis of the electrophoretic properties of double-stranded DNA and RNA in agarose gels at a finite voltage gradient
✍ Scribed by Stephen P. Edmondson; Donald M. Gray
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 1984
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 918 KB
- Volume
- 23
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0006-3525
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✦ Synopsis
The electrophoretic mobilities of double-stranded (ds) DNAs and ds RNAs of various lengths, L, were measured in gels of 0.4-1.8% (w/v) agarose at a voltage gradient of 1.0 V/cm. Differences in the electrophoresis of ds DNA and ds RNA are presented and discussed. A general expression is derived that describes the electrophoretic mobility, M, of either type of ds nucleic acid as a function of the gel concentration and the nucleic acid length: M = M,(L/L,) -* -M 2 , where Mi and Lo are constants, and x and M2 depend on the agarose gel concentration. The results obtained by fitting our data with this equation are consistent with the mobilities of nucleic acids in a wide range of gel concentrations, including free electrophoresis in solution and electrophoresis in gels of high agarose concentration in which nucleic acids are expected to reptate through the gel matrix. Finally, various methods of plotting agarose gel electrophoresis data are discussed.