DNA orientation during gel electrophoresis and its relation to electrophoretic mobility

✍ Scribed by Ian Hurley

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 886 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3525
• DOI: 10.1002/bip.360250403

✦ Synopsis

Intensities of polarized fluorescence from ethidium bound to phage h DNA undergoing agarose gel electrophoresis were measured. The intensities were strongly field dependent at voltage gradients of 8 V/cm, consistent with a partial orientation of DNA helices in the direction of electrophoresis about 500 times larger than seen in the same field in solution. Such an orientation was predicted by a reptation model of gel electrophoresis advanced by Lumpkin et al. [(1985) Bwplymers, 24, 1573-15931. The present results can be fit successfully to this theory with a single adjustable parameter, the gel-DNA contact distance. Also, h DNA electrophoretic mobilities in the same concentration gel were determined using the same buffer system. Both orientation and mobility measurements can be fit to the reptation theory within a factor of two using the same values of two parameters, the gel-DNA contact distance and the ratio of DNA charge to frictional coefficient.