Clinical applications of capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a new and innovative technique that separates charged or uncharged molecules in a thin buffer-filled capillary by the application of a very high voltage. Separations by CE are extremely fast: Some are achieved in less than 5 min, with reproducibility studies often showing coefficient of variation (CVs) of <2%. The outstanding characteristic of CE is that it is an extremely sensitive technique. Early workers reported separations greater than 1 million theoretical plates per meter by CE, which is 10× the sensitivity of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The development of automated sample injection has meant that CE can be integrated into a clinical setting in which turnaround of accurate, cost-effective results are paramount.