Molecular weight estimation of proteins by electrophoresis in linear polyacrylamide gradient gels in the absence of denaturing agents

Abstract

It was shown that in linear polyacrylamide gradient gels migration distance of a given protein increases as a function of the square root of the time of electrophoresis. The linearity between these two parameters is demonstrated by the statistical analysis of experimental data obtained with proteins of different shapes and a wide range of electrophoretic mobility. The slopes of the regression lines calculated by this method can be utilized to determine the molecular weight of a nondenatured protein. In fact, there is a linear relationship between the log of the molecular weights and the log of the slopes for proteins with M rs between 20,000 and 950,000.