Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis using immobilized pH gradient tube gels.

An apparatus for the preparation of gels for immobilized pH gradient isoelectric focusing (IPG) in glass tubes was developed. Using this apparatus, the highly reproducible immobilized pH gradient can be formed with Immobilines in polyacrylamide gels, and IPG gels at all possible pH ranges can be easily prepared at low cost. The IPG tube gels in the first dimension in two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was used to separate and identify a number of rice embryo proteins in the proteome analysis. There was no difference in resolution of proteins between the tube gels and the commercially available slab gels; after electrophoresis, however, we could efficiently obtain a larger amount of the purified proteins from the tube gels than from the slab gels.