title: Measurement of DNA length by gel electrophoresis. I. Improved accuracy of mobility measurements using a digital microdensitometer and computer processing.
abstract: The electrophoretic mobilities of DNA polymer fragments in an agarose gel have been measured from a photograph of the gel by different methods and converted to lengths by the reciprocal method. The method of measurement can introduce large errors in the length estimates. The use of a digital microdensitometer to obtain optical density profiles of gel tracks with subsequent computer processing to find peak positions was found to give the most accurate DNA lengths.
mesh_terms: D010582:Bacteriophage lambda / Q000032:analysis; D003201:Computers; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis*; D003720:Densitometry / Q000295:instrumentation; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D004247:DNA