A. Zsolnai et L. Orban, Accelerated separation of random complex DNA patterns in gels: Comparing the performance of discontinuous and continuous buffers, ELECTROPHOR, 20(7), 1999, pp. 1462-1468
Complex DNA fragment patterns produced by random amplified polymorphic DNA
(RAPD) assays were separated in agarose as well as polyacrylamide gels usin
g a continuous buffer and two discontinuous buffer systems, with and withou
t urea, respectively. The effect of very high field strength / current leve
ls on the duration of separation, the relative mobilities of the selected b
ands, and the appearance of the pattern was tested. The use of discontinuou
s buffer systems resulted in sharper bands and better resolution at 30 min
duration of separation for DNA fragments in the size range of 200-2000 base
pairs. These observations could help researchers in the rapid separation o
f band patterns produced by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods u
tilized in small- to mid-scale genome searches.