Multilocus Enzyme Electrophoresis

Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MEE) is a method for characterizing organisms by the relative mobilities under electrophoresis of a large number of intracellular enzymes. These differences in mobility are directly related to mutations at the gene locus that cause amino acid substitutions in the enzyme coded by the gene. Differences in the electrostatic charge between the original and substituted amino acid will affect the net charge of the enzyme, and hence its electrophoretic mobility. Thus, it is possible to relate mobility differences to different alleles at the gene locus for the enzyme in question. These mobility variants are called electromorphs. The unique profile of electromorphs produced for each strain of organism is called an electromorph type (ET).