A fast flat‐bed laser scanner for the digital acquisition of two‐dimensional electrophoresis patterns

Analysis of two-dimensional electrophoresis patterns demands computer assistance. Specialized machines to read and store the pattern of an autoradiograph or of a “wetgel” into a digital memory are rare. A fast and flexible opto-mechanical picture reading and storage machine, specially designed for the computer-aided analysis of two-dimensional electrophoresis patterns, has been constructed. It is now possible to digitize, for example, a picture of 250 × 400 mm into pixels of ca. 250 × 250 μm with a grey level resolution of 8-bit within 70 s. Digitizing at significant pixel sizes down to 64 μm is possible at correspondingly longer acquisition times for the areas to be digitized. The design is a flat-bed scanner. One axis is scanned optomechanically (Galvanometer scanned laser beam), the other axis is scanned mechanically. The area covered by the scanning laser beam has a size of 250 × 400 mm or smaller. The control of the scanner, including pixel density and sampling synchronization is executed by a microprocessor system.