Composition for use as an electrophoretic medium

Abstract

The present invention is concerned with a disposable electrophoresis cassette particularly suitable for pre-cast polyacrylamide gels for protein and nucleic acid electrophoresis. The invention also comprises a support plate for the said cassette that acts as a heat sink and provides a more uniform migration front in operation since the temperature of the gel is substantially the same during electrophoresis operation. Also disclosed is a novel comb element for filling the cassette, and a novel method therefor.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A composition for use as an electrophoretic medium comprising: 
 an electrophoretic gel;    a polymerization initiator;    a buffer; and    an adhesive agent allowing adhesion of polymerized electrophoretic medium onto a surface of an thermoplastic electrophoretic cassette.    
     
     
         2 . A composition according to  claim 1  wherein the gel comprises acrylamide gel, optionally cross-linked, agarose gel or starch gel; the polymerization initiator comprises ammonium persulfate and N,N,N,N-tetramethylethylenediamine (TEMED); 4-dimethylaminopropionitrile; 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone; 2,2-diethoxy-acetophenone; 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone; 2′,4′-dimethoxyacetophenone; 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-propiophenone; 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenylpropan-1-one, and mixtures thereof; the buffer comprises tris-borate EDTA, tris-acetate-EDTA, tris-glycine, tricine, or mixtures thereof; and the adhesive agent comprises at least one tetra-substituted silicon derivative wherein the substituents are the same or different and comprise a straight or branched alkyl, alkoxy, ketone, ester or amide each comprising from 1 to 8 carbon atoms, amino, halogen, cyano or hydroxy.