Reduced viscosity polymer matrices for microchip electrophoresis of double-stranded DNA

On a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microchip, double-stranded DNA fragments with a wide size range from 50 bp to 20 kbp were separated by two polymer solutions. One was a hydroxypropylmethylcellulose-4000 (HPMC-4000) solution of 1.3% (w/v) to separate fragments below 590 bp, and another was a mixed four molecular weight poly(ethylene oxide) solution at a total concentration of 0.1% to separate fragments above 520 bp. The widths at half height (wh) of the fragments had a good relationship with their migration times (tR) in both polymer solutions. Such a relationship was suitable for obtaining the wh values of unresolved peaks, calculating the resolution of two adjacent fragments, and optimizing microchip separation matrices. Based on the relativity, a low viscosity medium containing 2% HPMC-50 and 8% glucose was optimized for high-performance separation of a phiX174 HaeIII restriction fragment digest.