Capillary Electrophoresis of DNA

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an alternative to conventional slab gel electrophoresis for the separation of DNA fragments. CE offers a number of advantages over slab gel separations in terms of speed, resolution, sensitivity, and data handling. Separation times are generally only a few minutes and the DNA is detected either by UV absorption or by fluorescent labeling. The quantity of DNA required for separation is in the nanogram range. Single-base resolution can be obtained on fragments up to several hundred base pairs. In the presence of appropriate standards, fragments can be accurately sized based on relative electrophoretic mobility. A protocol for the analysis of synthetic oligonucleotides in a flowable matrix is described in this unit.