Improvements in polyacrylamide gel slicing

An improved polyacrylamide gel slicer has been devised that provides rapid uniform slicing with a precision of 4–6%. The advantages of this type of slicer are: The gel is sliced directly from the electrophoresis tube; gel diameter and length can vary with no modification of the system; and gels with a range of acrylamide concentrations can be fractionated with no pretreatment of the gel.     

High concentration polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

A simple technique is described for easy removal of high concentration polyacrylamide gels after electrophoresis from glass tubes without breaking them.     

A low-cost polyacrylamide gel scanning densitometer

A simple, low-cost, home-built acrylamide gel scanning densitometer is described. The instrument was designed to provide gel scans for the purpose of comparing the relative rates of mobility of bands. It does not include provisions for large volume, integration of peaks, or micrometer resolution. The key to the simplicity of the device was through the use of a rotary rather than a transverse gel carriage. A turntable was attached directly to the shaft of a synchronous clock motor with a slow rate of rotation. A curved gel holder, placed on the turntable, carries the gel through the light beam. A commercial strip chart recorder is used with the scanner.     

SDS microslab linear gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

An improved sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) microslab linear gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) technique has been developed. Several important features present in this microslab SDS-PAGE system include (1) high resolution and sensitivity; (2) rapid electrophoresis, staining, and destaining; (3) high reproducibility; and (4) low cost of construction and operation. Several gels are east at once between unmodified commercially available microslides separated by 0.5-mm thick Teflon spacers. The total time from start of electrophoresis to completion of destaining spans 2 hr. Gels are dried between transparent cellophane membranes in 1 hr and can be easily scanned with a microdensitometer. As little as 20 ng of a purified protein stained with Coomassie blue is detectable.