Influence of thickness of alkyl-silane coupling agent coating on separation of small DNA fragments in capillary gel electrophoresis
Abstract
To simplify the process of coating capillaries with fused silica, we herein set out to develop a one-step procedure for coating capillaries to prevent electro-osmotic flow (EOF) during the separation of small DNA fragments. We selected a short capillary (total length = 15 cm; effective length = 7.5 cm) for use in a compact capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) system. To develop a one-step coating procedure, we employed alkyltrimethoxysilane agents because they are cheap and can be easily acquired, in contrast to polyethylene glycol (PEG) silane coupling agents. We examined a 100-bp DNA Ladder sample using fused silica capillaries, which were coated with alkyltrimethoxysilane agents of five different molecular lengths (C4, C6, C8, C12, and C16). We found that a fused-silica capillary with C8 alkyltrimethoxysilane is optimal for separating small DNA samples.