title: Theory of band broadening for DNA gel electrophoresis and sequencing.
abstract: The problem of (thermal) band broadening during DNA gel electrophoresis is studied analytically and numerically using the reptation model. It is shown that the orientation of the end-to-end vector of the molecules leads to increased diffusion and even to molecular size-independent band broadening. Thus, the Einstein relation between mobility and diffusion holds for only very small molecules. Also, "self-trapped" molecules are predicted to give fuzzy bands, as observed experimentally. Finally, megabase molecules are discussed and the consequences of our predictions for the improvement of sequencing are considered.
authors: Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
authors: G W
authors: GW
authors: Slater
mesh_terms: D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D002627:Chemistry, Physical; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D004058:Diffusion; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel / Q000379:methods*; D008433:Mathematics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA