Separation and detection of DNA by capillary electrophoresis

The use of capillary electrophoresis for the separation and detection of nucleic acids has been investigated. Lab-model instruments have been built, using commercially available UV absorbance and fluorescence detectors which were modified for use with 50-100 microns I.D. fused-silica capillary tubing. The sensitivity of these instruments (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) was measured as 15 micrograms/ml for fluorescence detection of ethidium bromide-stained herring-sperm DNA and 3 micrograms/ml for UV absorbance detection. With the former instruments a variety of strategies has been used to attain rapid separations of bases, oligonucleotides, restriction fragments and whole phage, viral and plasmid DNAs.