title: Matrix conditioning for lengthened capillary DNA sequencing.
abstract: Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is currently the preferred format for both DNA sequencing and small DNA fragment analysis. The present study provides a simple revision of the procedure used for CE of DNA with a commercial DNA sequencing apparatus from Applied Biosystems. The revision is electrophoretic conditioning of the sieving matrix (typically POP-6) before sample injection. The effects of this preconditioning are revealed during subsequent analyses performed without replenishing the sieving matrix. The primary effect of preconditioning is to increase peak separations during a subsequent CE. The preconditioning has the following characteristics: (i) The effect on peak separation progressively increases as the preconditioning time increases to at least 6 h. (ii) The effect on peak separation scales approximately as the product of the preconditioning time and the magnitude of the electrical field (162 - 320 V/cm) during preconditioning. (iii) The preconditioning persists for more than 72 h at zero field. Preconditioning of the matrix substantially improves resolution of fragment analysis in the range of 700-2000 nucleotides. For DNA sequencing, the primary impact of preconditioning is, thus far, extension of the range of low-quality base calls at the end of sequence reading. Matrix preconditioning is a new factor to consider when interpreting data obtained by CE in polymer solutions. The mechanism of preconditioning is not yet known.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Gary A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Griess
authors.forename: Stephen C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Hardies
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Serwer
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA