While injection volumes in capillary electrophoresis are typically in
the nanoliter range, it is difficult to physically prepare and manipul
ate samples much smaller than a microliter. As a result, only a small
fraction of the analyte contained with the sample volume is transferre
d to the capillary. This problem is particularly acute in DNA sequenci
ng applications, where on-column stacking is difficult and where the s
equencing sample is relatively expensive to prepare. We report a metho
d that transfers 75% of the DNA contained within a 3 mu l sample onto
a capillary for DNA sequencing. This method relies on the use of very
low ionic strength formamide to resuspend the DNA after an ethanol pre
cipitation. The use of low ionic strength formamide achieves two tasks
. First, it produces a very high resistance sample, which increases th
e voltage drop across the sample and decreases the field across the ca
pillary. This electric field manipulation ensures that DNA fragments d
o not migrate down the capillary during the loading process, allowing
long injection periods without excessive band-broadening. Second, the
low ionic strength of the formamide increases the transference number
of the DNA; more of the current passing through the injection tip of t
he capillary is carried by DNA fragments. In the limit of complete eli
mination of impurity ions from the loading solvent, current passing th
rough the sample is carried only by DNA fragments and loading becomes
a coulometric process.