Electrophoresis

All unapproved Citizendium articles may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar etc. A version of an article is unapproved unless it is marked as citable with a dedicated green template at the top of the page, as in this version of the 'Biology' article. Citable articles are intended to be of reasonably high quality. The participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of Citizendium articles or, generally, their suitability for any purpose. This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project in the framework of a course entitled BEE 4640 Bioseparation Processes at Cornell University. The course homepage can be found at CZ:Cornell_University_2010_BEE_4640_Bioseparation_Processes. For the course duration, the article is closed to outside editing. Of course you can always leave comments on the discussion page. The anticipated date of course completion is 21 December 2010. One month after that date at the latest, this notice shall be removed. Besides, many other Citizendium articles welcome your collaboration! Note to course participants: Looking forward to some insightful and useful articles from your collaborations.

Electrophoresis is a separation technique frequently used in the analysis of proteins and nucleic acids. The process known as electrophoresis, involves the migration of particles or molecules (in particular proteins, DNA, and RNA) through an electric field that separates them exclusively on the basis of their size or molecular weight. The direction the molecule moves depends on its charge while the rate of migration is affected by the size, shape, density of the gel and the strength of the applied current (5c). Electrophoresis is a very simple process and relatively quick with a high resolution. In addition electrophoresis is an extremely useful method to estimate the purity of a sample. The technique is also very sensitive to slight variations in molecular weight, size, and even shape of nucleic acids and proteins . Electrophoresis can also be useful when it doesn’t affect the molecule’s structure or denature the protein

Generation of Heat in Electrophoresis Instrumentation

As shown in the diagram, the nucleic acids or proteins are loaded into the wells or depressions at one end on the eletrophoretic medium (also known as a gel). The apparatus also has two electrodes on either side of the eletrophoretic medium. The anode is positively charged while the cathode is negatively charged. When a power source connects the two electrodes the charged particles begin to migrate towards the oppositely charged electrode due to the electric potential field within the media (1).

Operation

Use lots of subsections here as you describe various aspects of the process .

Applications

This section should discuss how the process is used in practice.

Examples

If you have used a lot of equations in your article, this may be a good place to show an example of how they are used. See the article on the Antoine Equation for an example.