Nonlinear "Ferguson curves" by two runs of the commercial automated HPGE-1000 gel electrophoresis apparatus with intermittent scanning of fluorescence.

The exploitation of gel electrophoretic migration distance to gain information of molecular and gel fiber properties depends on the functions relating mobility with gel concentration. To the degree that these are nonlinear, the definition of those functions by past methods has been excessively laborious or, in application of gel concentration gradients, based on a number of assumptions. The recent commercial introduction of gel electrophoresis apparatus capable of intermittent scanning of the pattern promised to solve these problems. The present study shows that such apparatus allows for a precise definition of a nonlinear "Ferguson curve" (mobility vs. gel concentration) in two experiments, using different gel concentrations in the eight channels of the HPGE-1000 apparatus and 5-29 scans in each during the course of an electrophoretic run. Simultaneously, these Ferguson curves are obtained for five components of a DNA ladder ranging in DNA length from 121 to 1857 bp.