Ward Cassandra L, Cornejo Mario A, Peli Thanthri Shakila H, Linz Thomas H
Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA; Lumigen Instrument Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
Anal Chim Acta. 2023 Oct 2;1276:341613. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2023.341613. Epub 2023 Jul 11.
Gel electrophoresis is a ubiquitous bioanalytical technique used in research laboratories to validate protein and nucleic acid samples. Polyacrylamide and agarose have been the gold standard gel materials for decades, but an alternative class of polymer has emerged with potentially superior performance. Pluronic thermal gels are water-soluble polymers that possess the unique ability to undergo a change in viscosity in response to changing temperature. Thermal gels can reversibly convert between low-viscosity liquids and high-viscosity solid gels using temperature as an adjustable parameter. The properties of thermal gels provide unmatched flexibility as a dynamic separations matrix to measure analytes ranging from small molecules to cells. This review article describes the physical and chemical properties of Pluronic thermal gels to provide a fundamental overview of polymer behavior. The performance of thermal gels is then reviewed to highlight their applications as a gel matrix for electrokinetic separations in capillary, microfluidic, and slab gel formats. The use of dynamic temperature-responsive gels in bioanalytical separations is an underexplored area of research but one that holds exciting potential to achieve performance unattainable with conventional static polymers.
凝胶电泳是研究实验室中用于验证蛋白质和核酸样品的一种普遍存在的生物分析技术。几十年来，聚丙烯酰胺和琼脂糖一直是凝胶材料的金标准，但一类性能可能更优的替代聚合物已经出现。普朗尼克热凝胶是水溶性聚合物，具有独特的能力，能根据温度变化改变粘度。热凝胶可以利用温度作为可调参数，在低粘度液体和高粘度固体凝胶之间可逆转换。热凝胶的特性作为一种动态分离基质，在测量从小分子到细胞的各种分析物时提供了无与伦比的灵活性。这篇综述文章描述了普朗尼克热凝胶的物理和化学性质，以提供聚合物行为的基本概述。然后回顾了热凝胶的性能，以突出它们作为凝胶基质在毛细管、微流控和平板凝胶形式的电动分离中的应用。在生物分析分离中使用动态温度响应凝胶是一个尚未充分探索的研究领域，但它具有实现传统静态聚合物无法达到的性能的令人兴奋的潜力。
