Rapid Analysis of Amplified Double-Stranded DNA by Capillary Electrophoresis with Laser-Induced Fluorescence Detection

Electrophoresis is an important and fundamental tool for DNA analysis. Traditional DNA electrophoresis is labor-intensive, skill-dependent, and relatively slow. To achieve greater performance, capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been developed for DNA work (1 –2 ). The DNA fragments can be separated by molecular sieving in CE with gel-filled capillaries, based on the same principle as that of the conventional gel electrophoresis. The whole procedure can be completed in a relatively short period with great resolution. Recently, CE equipped with laser-induced fluorescence (CE-LIF) has been used as a tool for DNA analysis (3 ). Using fluorescence DNA intercalators in a gel-filled capillary, the detection sensitivity was found to increase 2–3 orders of magnitude over that of UV detection, and reaches picogram levels (3 ).