title: An exactly solvable Ogston model of gel electrophoresis. VI. Towards a theory for macromolecules.
abstract: In this article, we present a generalized version of our lattice model of low-field gel electrophoresis that allows us to treat the case of macromolecules such as short linear or circular oligomers and semi-flexible rods. We show that free-solution electrophoresis problems can be seen as random walks in the conformational space of the analyte. For sufficiently small molecules, our mathematical approach provides exact mobilities. In a quenched gel-like environment, however, both conformational and positional degrees of freedom must be used, but exact solutions can also be obtained. As an example, we then investigate several two-dimensional model gels, as well as a simple channel system where we see evidence of entropic effects that cannot be captured by the traditional Ogston concept of free volume.
authors: Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Canada.
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Boileau
authors: G W
authors: GW
authors: Slater
mesh_terms: D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel; D015180:Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D009696:Nucleic Acids; D011506:Proteins