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What Are Gel Electrophoresis?

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Gel electrophoresis is a gel technique that separates DNA and proteins based on their mass, by means of an applied electrical field that passes through an agarose or polyacrylamide gel. The concentration of agarose in the gel is commonly 0.8% to 1.0%, since agarose is expensive. The gel is embedded on a buffer, pH of 8.3, which keeps the pH of the solution at equilibrium. Assuming that at typical pH, DNA is negatively charged, denatured protein samples are placed in the wells located on the negative electrode side; hence the positive electrode side is located at the other end of the gel. As the positive and negative electrode sides are connected to a power source, protein sample migrates to the positive side of the gel. Migration of proteins is not necessarily based on their mass or mass to charge ratio; protein migration across the gel is based on their size. In other words smaller molecules will travels further than bigger molecules. Since the SDS gel contains agarose or polyacrilamide, molecules have to be small enough to migrate to the other end of the gel without getting stuck on the way. Protein samples separated by size via SDS-Page can be identified using mass spectroscopy; which will require proteins from the gel to be treated using trypsin; which is an enzyme that digests proteins. Assuming that samples were treated and storaged properly, the digestion of peptides begins with the rehydration of proteins using trypsin, followed by the incubation of proteins using a

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