Electrophoresis is the main metod for separating large polyelectrolyte molecules, primarily used on DNA, in biochemistry and medicine research. An overwiev of the models of physical mechanisms that are behind this phenomena will be presented. The prominent role is taken by reptation mechanisms, by which large ‡exible polyelectrolytes thread their way through the pores of the gel matrix. There a...

The separation of polypeptides by electrophoresis allowed Arne Tiselius to describe protein fractions corresponding to albumin, -, -, and -globulins in serum with the Rrst published diagram of human serum protein electrophoresis in 1939. The number of fractions slowly expanded into electrophoretic subfractions identiRed as 1, 2, 1, 2, 1 and 2. The mobility characteristics of these fractions are...