FAST DETECTION OF A (CA)(18) MICROSATELLITE REPEAT IN THE IGE RECEPTOR GENE BY CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS WITH LASER-INDUCED FLUORESCENCE DETECTION

The optimum separation conditions of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) p roducts have been found for high-speed capillary electrophoresis (CE) with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. DNA fragments obtaine d after PCR amplification of the region covering the (CA)(18) microsat ellite repeat in nitron 5 of the gene for FcERI beta, a high affinity glycoprotein receptor for IgE, located on chromosome 11 (11q13), were analyzed with the aim of investigating the repeat polymorphism. The re sults of polyacrylamide slab gel electrophoresis (PAGE), agarose gel e lectrophoresis, CE with absorbance detector and CE with LIF are compar ed. The CE with LIF proved to shorten analysis time by a factor of 100 when compared to slab gel electrophoresis. CE-LIF utilizes a short ca pillary with an effective length of 6.3 cm and electric field strength from 100 to 550 V/cm. The respective PCR products of sizes from 116 t o 210 base pairs (bp) were analyzed in 3 min.