ISSN:
0173-0835
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
A previous observation by Nochumson et al. [7], showing that agarose after reduction or abolition of its supercoiled structure by hydroxyethylation (SeaPrep 15/45), exhibits a molecular sieving effect similar to polyacrylamide in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) was confirmed and quantitated by Ferguson plot analysis in PAGE. SeaPrep 15/45 exhibits an effective fiber radius of 0.8 nm, as compared to 23.8 nm for native agarose and 0.4 nm for 2 % crosslinked polyacrylamide. Its effective pore size (estimated as \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \sqrt {{\rm K}_{{\rm R polyacrylamide}} } /\sqrt {{\rm K}_{{\rm R agarose}} } $\end{document}) is 0.88 times that of polyacrylamide 2% crosslinked with N,N'-methylene bisacrylamide (Bis). Although this is not a practical result as yet, due to the low melting temperature and poor gel strength of SeaPrep 15/45, it does sound the death knell for the use of crosslinked polyacrylamide in macromolecular separations, by demonstrating that a linear polymer capable of forming a gel on mere cooling is equivalent to the product of a laborious and relatively irreproducible free radical polymerization. It remains to find a linear polymer with higher melting point and better mechanical strength and adherence to glass walls than SeaPrep 15/45 to make crosslinked polyacrylamide obsolete.
Additional Material:
2 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/elps.1150030303
Permalink
