Electrophoresis speed

Miniaturized columns have provided a decisive advantage in speed. Uracil, phenol, and benzyl alcohol were separated in 20 seconds by CEC in an 18 mm column with a propyl reversed phase.29 A19 cm electrophoretic channel was etched into a glass wafer, filled with a y-cyclodextrin buffer, and used to resolve chiral amino acids from a meteorite in 4 minutes.30 A 6 cm channel equipped with a syringe pump to automate sample derivatization was used to separate amino acids modified with fluorescein isothiocyanate.31 Nanovials have been used to perform tryptic digests on the 15 nL scale for subsequent separation on capillary Electrophoresis.32 A microcolumn has also been used to generate fractions representing time-points of digestion from a 40 pL sample.33 A disposable nanoelectrospray emitter has been... 

In E. Coli bacterial lysates, the proteome (i.e., the full array of proteins produced) was analyzed by isoelectric focusing and mass spectrometry.97 A comparison of capillary electrophoretic separation and slab gel separation of a recombinant monoclonal antibody demonstrated that the precision, robustness, speed, and ease-of-use of CE were superior.98 Seventy-five proteins from the yeast ribosome were analyzed and identified by capillary electrophoresis coupled with MS/MS tandem mass spectrometry.99 Heavy-chain C-terminal variants of the anti-tumor necrosis factor antibody DE7 have been separated on capillary isoelectric focusing.100 Isoforms differing by about 0.1 pi units represented antibodies with 0,1 or 2 C-terminal lysines. 

Because HPLC and HPCE are based on different physico-chemical principles, HPCE may be expected to address areas in which HPLC has shortcomings [884]. One such area is time of separation. In terms of speed of analysis, selectivity, quantitation, methods to control separation mechanism, orthogonality, CE performs better than conventional electrophoresis and varies from HPLC (Table 4.49). CE has very high efficiency compared to HPLC (up to two orders of magnitude) or GC. For typical capillary dimensions 105—106 theoretical plates are common in CE compared to 20 000 for a conventional HPLC column and... 

Hapuarachchi, S., Premeau, S.P., Aspinwall, C.A. (2006). High speed capillary zone electrophoresis with online photolytic optical injection. Anal. Chem. 78, 3674—3680. 

Monnig, C.A., Jorgenson, J.W. (1991a). On-column sample gating for high-speed capillary zone electrophoresis. Anal. Chem. 63, 802-807. 

Capillary electrophoresis has also been combined with other analytical methods like mass spectrometry, NMR, Raman, and infrared spectroscopy in order to combine the separation speed, high resolving power and minimum sample consumption of capillary electrophoresis with the selectivity and structural information provided by the other techniques [6]. 

C.S. Effenhauser, A. Manz, and M. Widmer, Glass chips for high-speed capillary electrophoresis separations with submicrometer plate heights. Anal. Chem. 65, 2637-2642 (1993). 

Biomolecular MS and in particular MALDI-TOF-MS (see Sections 2.1.22 and 2.2.1) permit the routine analysis of oligonucleotides up to 70-mers, intact nucleic acids, and the direct detection of DNA products with no primer labels with an increase in analysis speed and mass accuracy especially in contrast to traditional DNA separation techniques such as slab gels or capillary electrophoresis. Applications focus on the characterization of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and short tandem repeats (STRs). Precise and accurate gene expression measurements show relative and absolute numbers of target molecules determined independently of the number of PCR cycles. DNA methylation can be studied quantitatively. 

Figure 7.1. Effect of GM-CSF on neutrophil protein biosynthesis. Human neutrophils were incubated in RPMI1640 medium supplemented with 2.5% foetal calf serum and 60 jtCi/ml [35S]-methionine, in the presence and absence of 50 U/ml GM-CSF. After 4 h incubation at 37 °C, the cells were pelleted by low-speed centrifugation. The proteins in the cell pellets were precipitated by 10% trichloracetic acid and then analysed by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, using iso-electrofocussing in the first dimension. Electrophoresis in the second dimension was performed in the presence of SDS and used a 12% acrylamide gel. Source Experiment of Becky Stringer.

Capillary procedures offer several advantages, including speed, resolution, sensitivity and technical simplicity, compared with the traditional methods on which they were based. An added advantage for iso-electric focusing in capillaries is the fact that it can be performed without a gel, but a coating on the internal surface of the capillary is usually required to reduce electroendosmosis. Similarly, isotachophoresis can be conveniently performed in capillary electrophoresis apparatus. 

The Human Genome Project (see Appendix 2, Section A2.3.3) was completed in 2006. One method it used to improve the speed and quality of the sequencing was capillary array electrophoresis (Exhibit 3.12). 

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