A rapid, inexpensive, quantitative, general-purpose densitometer and its application to one-dimensional gel electrophoretograms.

We describe the construction of a densitometer based on a TV camera linked to an IBM personal computer (PC) using commercially available components. We discuss some of the problems of accurate quantitative densitometry using low-cost video systems, and describe the manner in which absolute optical density values may be recorded. We describe a digital analysis routine designed to quantitate unresolved bands on noisy one-dimensional electrophoretograms.