A simplified electrophoretic system for determining molecular weights of proteins.

Electrophoresis of 31 different proteins in commercially prepared polyacrylamide gradient gels, Gradipore, yields a linear relationship between a hypothetical limiting pore size (the reciprocal of a limiting gel concentration, GL) and the cube root of the mol.wt., over the range 13 500-9000 000. A regression analysis of these data reveals that 98.6% of all variability in 1/GL is explained by the molecular weight, and this degree of accuracy compares favourably with existing methods for the determination of molecular weight by retardation of mobility in polyacrylamide. This new procedure has the additional advantages that molecular-weight standards can be obtained from readily available body fluids or tissue extracts by localizing enzymes and other proteins by standard histochemical methods, and that the same electrophoretic system can be used in determining molecular weights as is used in routine surveys of populations for individual and species variation in protein heterogeneity.