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. 1990 Nov 11;18(21):6331–6338. doi: 10.1093/nar/18.21.6331

On the movement and alignment of DNA during 120 degrees pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

R W Whitcomb 1, G Holzwarth 1
PMCID: PMC332500  PMID: 2243779

Abstract

The displacement per pulse of lambda, T4, and G DNA during pulsed-field agarose gel electrophoresis has been measured for a fine mesh of pulse durations T between 0.02 and 120 s. The slopes of these curves show that the DNA moves by two distinct processes, designated 1 and 2, depending upon the pulse duration T. Process 1 operates at short T and causes dx/dT to decrease gradually with increasing T. This process is independent of molecular weight M. Process 2 is effective at longer T and causes dx/dT to rise sharply in sigmoidal fashion at a value of T which increases as M1.2, finally reaching a plateau of 1.4 microns/s for E = 4 V/cm. The shape of the dx/dT curve and its dependence on M lead directly to 4 zones of separation in plots of mobility vs M for different T. The alignment of the 3 DNAs during PFGE was measured by fluorescence-detected linear dichroism for E between 4 and 10 V/cm. These results are used in developing a molecular understanding of the mobility data.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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