Exclusion of spheres by agarose gels during agarose gel electrophoresis: Dependence on the sphere's radius and the gel's concentration

Philip Serwer, Shirley J. Hayes

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Agarose gel electrophoresis of spheres (radius = R) has been used to determine the effective radius (PE) of the pores of an agarose gel (percentage of agarose in a gel = A). The value of PE at a given A was taken to be the R of the largest sphere that enters the gel. When log PE is plotted as a function of log A, the results can be represented by: PE = 118A-0.74 for 0.2 ≤ A ≤ 4.0 (PE in nm). However, the data suggest significant nonlinearity in this plot, the magnitude of the exponent of the PE vs A relationship increasing by about 20% as A increases from 0.2 to 4.0. From these data, PE's as big as 1500 nm and as small as 36 nm can be achieved with agarose gels formed with unmodified, unadulterated agarose and usable for electrophoresis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)72-78
Number of pages7
JournalAnalytical Biochemistry
Volume158
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1986

Keywords

  • agarose gel
  • gel electrophoresis
  • latex spheres
  • pore size
  • spheres
  • spherical viruses
  • two-dimensional

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Biophysics
  • Biochemistry
  • Cell Biology

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