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Electric birefringence imaging of electrokinetic agarose orientation
Author(s) -
Lanan Maureen,
Shick Reed,
Morris Michael D.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.360310909
Subject(s) - birefringence , agarose , chemistry , electrophoresis , gel electrophoresis of nucleic acids , electrokinetic phenomena , electric field , orientation (vector space) , optics , chromatography , physics , geometry , mathematics , quantum mechanics
Time‐resolved and steady‐state electric birefringence imaging with a slow‐scan video camera is used to study orientation during DNA agarose gel electrophoresis. The hydrodynamically induced gel distortion is shown to be the major source of birefringence under electrophoresis running conditions and to generate a birefringence image that approximates the image of the DNA concentration gradient in the electric field direction. A fluid kinematic model is presented to describe the spatial distribution of steady‐state birefringence and is verified with fluorescence measurements of DNA distribution. The stress‐optic coefficient of 1% agarose gel is measured by mechanical compression and used to evaluate the magnitude of the induced strain on the gel during electrophoresis.