Capillary gel electrophoresis of oligonucleotides using polymer solutions

Summary Capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) has been recognized as an effective method for the analysis of oligonucleotides. CGE using polymer solutions is especially useful and effective compared with that using crosslinked gels, because of easy change of media. Replacement of media leads to the reproducible separation of analytes. We have investigated CGE analysis of oligonucleotides of less than 20 bases employing various kinds of polymers. Polyacrylamide, dextrin, dextran, pullakin, and poly(ethylene glycol) were used as sieving matrixes at concentrations of 0–30 %. Polydeoxythymidylic acids p(dT)_11–20] were used as a test sample. These small oligonucleotides were successfully resolved on the basis of their base number by CGE using some of these polymer solutions. In particular, dextran was found to be effective and baseline separation was observed when a 30 % dextran solution was employed. Some validations such as linearity and reproducibility were also established and this method was found to be an adequate quality control method for small oligonucleotides. Finally, CGE using a 30 % dextran solution was successfully applied to impurity profiling of some synthetic oligonucleotides.