DNA capillary electrophoresis using poly(vinyl alcohol). I. Inner capillary coating.

Two new methods of inner capillary coating with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVAL) have been investigated and evaluated by performing DNA capillary electrophoresis (CE) using PVAL as a separation medium and by measuring the electroosmotic flow (EOF) mobility. The treatment of capillaries with a silanol-group modified PVAL (PVAL-Si) has been found to give good coating effects for improving the resolution of DNA CE and for reducing the EOF. This coating must be effectively achieved by combining the adsorptive property of PVAL chains onto silica with the reaction between the silanol groups of PVAL-Si and the silica surface. The adsorption of PVAL onto silica has been observed by using atomic force microscopy (AFM) for PVAL-Si as well as for a nonmodified PVAL as a control. The coating with PVAL that links to the capillary wall surface with more hydrolytically stable bonding, -Si-C-, has been formed by performing the Grignard reaction, followed by in-capillary polymerization of vinyl acetate (VAc) and hydrolysis. This coating has been found to be effective for improving the resolution of DNA CE and for reducing the EOF.

DNA capillary electrophoresis using poly(vinyl alcohol). II. Separation media.

We represent the first extensive study on DNA capillary electrophoresis using various poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVAL)-related polymers as separation media. As a separation medium, PVAL homopolymer has shown poor resolutions probably due to its very strong hydrogen-bonding characteristics, resulting in extensive self-aggregation. On the other hand, poly(vinyl alcohol-co-vinyl acetate) and poly(vinyl alcohol-co-1-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVAL-VP), both with a degree of polymerization of approximately 3.0x10(3), have been found to give excellent electropherograms with good resolutions for the analysis of double-stranded (ds)DNA. PVAL-VP, with hydrolytic stability in high and low pH regions, has also yielded fair electropherograms for single-stranded (ss)DNA under neutral and alkaline conditions, although further investigation is essential in order to increase the resolutions necessary for DNA sequencing analysis. The separations obtained under alkaline conditions have shown significantly shorter retention times, one-third of that for the current commercial separation media, due to the higher ionization of phosphate groups in the DNA chains.