Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of capsular polysaccharides of bacteria.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the gel electrophoretic method that provides a facile way of characterizing the molecular species in polydisperse polysaccharide samples, such as the capsular polysaccharides of bacteria. Within each type of polysaccharide, these acidic polymers have similar charge-to-mass ratios that enable their separation on the basis of molecular size. It is possible to determine—in one analysis—both the length of the polysaccharide chains and the distribution of chains of different lengths. The chapter described the use of gel electrophoresis for the analysis of capsular chain lengths of Kl-defective Escherichia coli (E. coli) mutants and for the determination of the cleavage specificity of capsule-degrading endoglycosidases associated with bacteriophages. The chapter illustrates an example of the use of the gel electrophoretic method for the analysis of bacteriophage-digested polysaccharides.