HIGH-SENSITIVITY RADIATION DETECTOR FOR CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

Capillary electrophoresis is an important new instrumental technique c apable of high resolution separation and analysis of small quantities of nucleotides, amino acids, peptides, and proteins with very high eff iciency and throughput. The unprecedented sensitivity of this techniqu e will be useful for such new applications as in vivo labeling and ide ntification of trace substances and single cell work. The principle li mitation of this technique for radiolabeled molecules has been identif ied as the sensitivity of the detector, primarily due to the small sam ple volume (< 1 nl) and the short residence time of the sample in the detector (< 3 sec). We have developed a novel high-sensitivity CdTc so lid-state detector used for detection of P-32-labeled biomolecules wit h unprecedented sensitivity. This detector can be easily retrofitted i nto existing CE apparatus.