Abstract

Gel electrophoresis is the most widely accepted technique for analysis and separation of DNA fragments. Standard gel electrophoresis is used for fragment sizes up to approximately 50 kb in length. Larger fragments must be separated by some form of pulsed field electrophoresis (1). Capillary gel electrophoresis (2) and ultrathin slab gel electrophoresis (3) are currently being developed to allow for high speed separation of DNA sequencing ladders for sizes less than 1 kb. No matter what form of electrophoresis is used, the separation is highly non-linear and generally has an upper limit to the size of the DNA that can be analyzed. In addition, conventional gel-based separations may take many hours, depending on required resolution and detection method.

© 1994 Optical Society of America