IMPROVED SENSITIVITY OF DETECTION WITH THE COMMERCIAL AUTOMATED GEL-ELECTROPHORESIS (HPGE-1000) APPARATUS THROUGH MODIFICATION OF ITS OPTICAL-SYSTEM

In a representative application to a fluorescently detectable protein of commercial automated gel electrophoresis apparatus (HPGE-1000, LabI ntelligence, Belmont, CA) the sensitivity of detection by fluorescence was significantly increased by elimination of the mirror below the ge l tray. That increase in detection sensitivity is due to a decrease of fluorescent background noise by nearly one order of magnitude, overco mpensating a decrease in signal by a factor of two. The resulting incr ease in signal/noise ratio, i.e., detection sensitivity, should allow for lowered sample loads by which the band width is reduced with benef its to resolution.